New Delhi: “It has rekindled our hopes,” said Nadeem, 40, a day after the Delhi High Court transferred from the Delhi Police to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) the investigation into the murder of his brother, Faizan, during the 2020 Delhi riots.
“We have waited so long for justice. Over time, we started losing hope. Now that the CBI will investigate the case, it has rekindled our hopes. This is a silver lining,” Nadeem told ThePrint Wednesday.
Faizan died two days after he was allegedly thrashed by policemen on 24 February 2020 during the deadly riots in northeast Delhi. A clip had also emerged of the injured 23-year-old, along with four other wounded men, lying on the road and being forced to sing the national anthem by policemen. It was shared widely on social media in the following days.
A Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Delhi Police had been probing the matter over the last four years.
The communal riots that broke out on 23 February, spread like wildfire and continued till 28 February, leaving at least 53 dead and rendering hundreds homeless. As many as 757 cases have been lodged in connection with the violence.
While transferring the case, the court noted that the incident was a “hate crime” and came down heavily on the Delhi Police, calling its investigation “shoddy and tardy” and noting that it had not been able to identify a single policeman involved in the incident so far.
“What is worse is that the suspects were entrusted to act as custodians of the law, and were in a position of power and authority, but seemed to have been driven by bigoted mindsets,” Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani said Tuesday while hearing a petition filed by the 23-year-old’s mother, Kismatun.
In her plea, the victim’s mother accused the Delhi Police of assaulting young Muslim men, including Faizan, forcing them to chant the national anthem, and then dumping them on the road.
Kismatun also accused the police of then taking the wounded Faizan to the police station, instead of arranging for the specialised treatment referred by the doctors. While Faizan and the others were taken to a hospital for initial treatment, they were later taken to the Jyoti Nagar police station. According to the 23-year-old’s post-mortem report, Faizan died as a result of “cerebral injury associated with multiple blunt injuries over the body”.
“These four years have taken a lot from us,” said Nadeem. “It has been exhausting. We thought Faizan’s killers would never be punished, but now we think that a fresh investigation will be done. Hopefully this time, it’s unbiased.”
(Edited by Sanya Mathur)
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