New Delhi: Nearly six years after a 23-year-old youth was allegedly fatally assaulted by a group of Delhi Police personnel amid the North East Delhi riots in February 2020, the CBI has charged two of them in the case.
The central agency has charged head constable Ravinder Kumar and constable Pawan Yadav under sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 325 (voluntarily causing grievous hurt), 304(II) read with Section 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code. The section on murder invoked in the FIR has not been retained in the chargesheet.
In the FIR, the agency had invoked sections of rioting (147,148,149) along with section 302 that deals with the offence of murder.
Section 304 (ii) deals with the offence of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, where the accused causes death with the knowledge that their act is likely to cause death, but without the explicit intention to kill.
The incident goes back to February 2020. Communal riots broke out on 23 February in several pockets of North East Delhi amid raging protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). In the violence that lasted till 28 February, 53 people were killed, according to official figures. Police lodged as many as 757 cases in connection with the violence.
According to the allegations levelled by Faizan’s mother Kismatun, he worked at a meat shop at the Ghazipur mandi in East Delhi. She said the incident happened on 24 February 2020 when he stepped out of their house to find her since she had not returned from the site of protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), 2019.
His mother came home eventually, but he did not, making her look for him in the locality, but not leaving their home due to the violence.
In her submission to the high court, she alleged that based on a sequence of events, narrated by Faizan himself, he was taken to the GTB Hospital by police. The same night she got information that Faizan was at the GTB Hospital. At the hospital, the family allegedly found that Faizan was taken to the Jyoti Nagar Police station in grievously injured condition.
However, before he was released the next day, his mother came across a viral video on the morning purportedly showing Faizan and other young men “encircled, physically assaulted and brutally beaten-up by certain policemen” who also hurled abuses and derogatory phrases at them, she has submitted in the HC.
She alleged that the men, including Faizan, lied on the roadside in a badly beaten and injured condition, while being forced by the policemen to sing the national anthem. She submitted two links to the video.
Faizan died on the intervening night of 26 and 27 February.
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‘Too little, too late’
The Delhi Police registered a case under sections of rioting and murder against unidentified suspects on 28 February.
The Delhi police chief later transferred the case to an SIT. Raising apprehension that the Delhi police SIT was “vitiated”, she claimed the probe was “neither objective nor fair”. She moved the Delhi High Court later that year, seeking a fresh SIT probe.
In July 2024, the Delhi High Court observed the case would amount to “hate crime”, and termed the Delhi Police SIT probe “too little, too late”. The court then handed over the case to the CBI, which registered a fresh case in August 2024.
‘No accident, planned murder’
The CBI probe revived the family’s hope for justice. Faizan’s brother, Nadeem, had earlier told ThePrint that the High Court’s order for a CBI probe was a “silver lining” that rekindled their hopes.
However, not invoking section 302 in the chargesheet has left Nadeem bitterly disappointed.
“I do not know the complexity of the laws, but I understand as much that section 304 deals with deaths that happen in accidents,” Nadeem told ThePrint Thursday.
“This was not an accident, but murder committed openly on the streets. There are videos that show how Faizan and others were assaulted. This is grossly unjustified, more so as it comes after a long wait of six years,” Nadeem further said.
Responding to the development, Senior Advocate Vrinda Grover, who represented the family before the High Court, said the viral video showed a group of “five or more uniformed policemen” mercilessly assault and “target young Muslim men to prove their patriotism by singing the national anthem”.
“It is surprising that the CBI investigation could not uncover the names of the other policemen that formed the criminal gang and unlawful assembly. Here is a case where custodial interrogation was necessary and warranted to uncover the names of the other accused,” she said.
“Also, after the initial assault by the cops, Faizan was kept in illegal detention at Jyoti Nagar PS for over 24 hours and released only when he was on the verge of succumbing to his injuries. The second limb of the crime has once again been eclipsed and Jyoti Nagar PS police officials shielded,” she said.
This is therefore a belated and half hearted arraignment of only two of the accused cops, she said. “Clearly the brotherhood of Khaki continues to overwhelm a mother’s right to justice. At the appropriate stage this incomplete investigation will be challenged on behalf of the victim before the Court.”
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)
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