In the past four years, Ali Fadma, 55, has hardly spoken to anyone. She mostly sits in a corner of her tiny house in north-east Delhi’s Old Mustafabad, holding a photograph of her deceased son Ashfaq.
Twenty-two-year-old Ashfaq Hussain was killed by a mob in the communal riots that rocked north-east Delhi in 2020. “Hume nahi pata kisne mara mere bete ko… magar jinhone bhi mara woh azaad ghoom rahe hain (I don’t know who killed my son… but whoever killed him, is roaming free),” said Ms. Fadma.
Earlier this month, a Delhi court acquitted Ashok Kumar, Ajay Singh, Subham Singh, and Jitender Kumar, who were accused of killing Ashfaq on February 25, 2020. The court said the prosecution could not even provide any evidence that the accused were part of the riotous mob.
The 2020 violence, which lasted around four days from February 23 to 27 that year, led to the deaths of 53 people (38 Muslim victims and 15 Hindus) and left hundreds injured. Areas, including Jafrabad, Seelampur, Bhajanpura, Karawal Nagar, Khajoori Khas, Gokalpuri, and Dayalpur, were engulfed by Delhi’s deadliest riots in decades, sparked by clashes over the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act.
Four years later, there is little closure for the survivors.
Over 2,000 people were booked and arrested by the police on charges of rioting, arson, murders etc. in over 750 first information reports (FIRS).
Ashok Kumar, who remained in jail for 23 months for the murder of not just Ashfaq but two others – Mehtab and Zakir – too has a litany of complaints. The riots and the aftermath shattered his entire family, he said. “My daughters – aged 8 and 15 – couldn’t bear the trauma of seeing their father in jail and fell severely ill. My absence for almost two years forced my wife Manju to sell her jewellery and take loans for the treatment of our daughters — they suffer from bone tuberculosis,” he told The Hindu.
The police, he added, came and picked him up only because his mobile repair shop was in the locality where the violence broke out. “I haven’t done anything,” said Mr. Kumar, who has now moved to a house in a different locality and opened a shop there.
Failure of probe agency
Delhi Police has faced severe criticism for the shoddy handling of the riots and the aftermath. The courts, too, have reprimanded the police on several occasions for sloppy probe, which has led to the acquittal of around 180 people.
Karkardooma Courts Additional Sessions Judge Pulastya Pramachala, while acquitting Mr. Kumar and others in murder cases, also noted that the eyewitness produced in the court by the prosecution turned hostile and did not support the police’s investigation.
According to the data accessed from the Karkardooma court, where the Delhi riots cases are on trial, the police managed to file chargesheet in around 60% of the cases pertaining to riots and in the ‘larger conspiracy cases’ in which Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam, Safoora Zargar, Asif Iqbal Tanha, Meeran Haider, former Congress councillor Ishrat Jahan, Shifa-Ur-Rehman, Gulfisha Fatima, Khalid Saifi, Shadab Ahmed, Tasleem Ahmed, Mohd. Saleem Khan, Athar Khan, Devangana Kalita, Natasha Narwal, and former Aam Aadmi Party councillor Tahir Hussain were chargesheeted.
Among those arrested was a juvenile, who had been named as ‘CCL’ by advocate Ashish Kumar who fought his case. The minor was acquitted in September 2023.
“My client who was 17 at the time of his arrest was booked for opening fire at a policeman. The police failed to prove the incident of firing nor could substantiate the dozens of allegations levelled against the child, including that of carrying and firing firearms, conspiracy, rioting and all others,” said the advocate.
Now 21, the young man is yet to come to terms with the trauma. “I wish he forgets the bitter past and starts a new life soon. It’s difficult to see your child suffering like this,” said his distraught mother.
The failure of the investigating agencies got special mentions in multiple court acquittals in the last four years. Additional Sessions Judge Pramachala, in multiple orders, said the police’s FIRs looked like “copy-paste” jobs and chargesheets were prepared merely based on “hearsay evidence”.
In 2021, Karkardooma Courts Additional Session Judge Vinod Yadav, who was later transferred to the Rouse Avenue Courts, while discharging four persons in a case of rioting and arson, had observed, “When history will look back at the worst communal riots since Partition in Delhi, it is the failure of investigating agency to conduct proper investigation by using latest scientific methods [that] will surely torment the sentinels of democracy.”
Khusnudi, mother of Mehtab. | Photo Credit: SHASHI SHEKHAR KASHYAP
The court had further observed that the case was a colossal wastage of the hard-earned money of taxpayers, without there being real intent of investigating the matter.
At Mehtab’s house in Brij Puri, New Mustafabad, his mother Khushnudi has lost faith in the criminal justice system and doesn’t want to pursue the case of her deceased son any further.
“I don’t want anything from anyone. Tell me if my son will come back if I keep fighting this case? I only pray to Allah that he grants my son a place in paradise. That’s all,” said Ms. Khushnudi, who mostly keeps to herself since the demise of her youngest son. “She has somewhat lost her mental balance since then,” said Yasmeen, the deceased’s sister-in-law.
The Hindu reached out to DCP (North East) Joy Tirkey for a comment regarding the probe, however, no response was received from him.
