A Delhi court has acquitted two men who had been accused of vandalising multiple shops during the 2020 northeast Delhi riots, stating that merely being part of a mob chanting slogans cannot be automatically equated with participating in violence.
Additional Sessions Judge Praveen Singh of the Karkardooma Court noted that none of the prosecution witnesses were able to specifically identify the accused as active participants in the rioting.
The acquitted men, Jony Kumar and Mithan Singh, had been seen standing with a group of people shouting “Jai Shri Ram,” but the judge ruled that this alone was insufficient to infer involvement in the criminal acts that followed.
The case stems from an incident on February 25, 2020, when a shop in northeast Delhi was damaged by a mob. An FIR was lodged at Khajuri Khas police station under charges of vandalism, rioting, and robbery, initially against unidentified individuals. Kumar and Singh were later arrested after CCTV footage of the area was reviewed.
Several other vandalism cases were later consolidated under the same FIR, with both men accused of being part of the mob responsible.
The court also dismissed claims that the witnesses may have been influenced by the accused, observing that it was highly unlikely that victims of the crime would side with the perpetrators several years after the incident.
