A court in the capital Delhi has convicted 4 people, including former councilor Tahir Hussain, in the murder of Intelligence Bureau (IB) employee Ankit Sharma during the North-East Delhi riots of 2020. However, during the hearing of this case related to Delhi riots, the court largely depended on the testimony of only one witness, Pradeep Verma.
Apart from Tahir Hussain, the court also convicted Nazim, Qasim, Javed and Anas. The court admitted that these people were among those who surrounded IB officer Ankit and dragged him towards Chand Bagh culvert before fatally attacking him. These people are also responsible for murder and other crimes under section 149 of the IPC. While Haseen alias Mullaji alias Salman, Firoz, Gulfam, Soyeb, Sameer Khan, Muntajim alias Musa were acquitted.
More confidence in Pradeep’s testimony
The trial court considered Pradeep Verma a credible witness during the hearing, even though he was included as a witness in 9 other FIRs related to the riots. The court relied on Pradeep’s testimony to convict 4 accused in this case, however, it refused to rely on the same testimony to convict 2 other accused, and they were later acquitted.
According to the report of the newspaper Indian Express, Pradeep Verma, who runs a parking lot in Khajuri Khas, had claimed that he had seen a riot taking place in the area on February 25, 2020, during which IB employee Ankit Sharma was murdered. However, the defense argued that Pradeep was running an illegal parking lot and hence he was being pressurized by the police to give false testimony. But Pradeep denied this allegation.
first deny then claim to see
Also, Pradeep initially denied seeing Tahir Hussain in the crowd, but later claimed that at around 3 pm, he thought that Hussain was standing near the Chand Bagh culvert, although he did not actually see Tahir in the crowd. Opinion of the accused was divided regarding their testimony.
The conviction of former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) councilor Tahir Hussain and three others in the murder of Intelligence Bureau (IB) employee Ankit Sharma during the 2020 north-east Delhi riots depended largely on the testimony of a single witness, Pradeep Verma.
Before the court, Hussain argued that Pradeep was the only prosecution witness “who would have seen the incident”. He was presented as a “true and natural witness”, while the other accused said that their testimony should not be trusted.
Police did not consider the witness trustworthy
The judge also said, “It is very interesting that according to one section of the accused, (Pradeep Verma) is one of the most natural witnesses who would have clearly seen the incident, while for some other accused, he is not only an incidental or biased witness, but he was also not in a position to see anything.”
However, the court rejected the idea that Pradeep could be called an “incidentally present” or “biased” witness. The court said that even though he was made a prosecution witness in several cases related to the riots, no evidence was found to show that he had been a witness in any criminal case before the 2020 riots.
To prove the role of Tahir Hussain, the court recorded the statements of 7 eyewitnesses of the prosecution, including 2 police witnesses whom the court did not consider trustworthy, while the remaining other civilian witnesses were made, among whom was Pradeep Verma.
The court found that Pradeep had “renewed his words” and did not support the prosecution’s claim that Hussain was part of an unlawful assembly or instigating the mob. Ultimately, the court, based on the testimony of Pradeep and others, accepted that the charges of rioting and murder against Hussain were proved, while acquitting him of the charges of abetment, aiding and abetting the mob and criminal conspiracy.
Nazim and Qasim both found guilty
Similarly, when another witness was not found trustworthy, the court had to completely depend on Pradeep’s testimony. Nazim and Qasim, who were caught from Sambhal in Uttar Pradesh about 5 days after the incident, were identified by Pradeep. He told that he was a part of that crowd and on 25th February, the Nazim had a knife in his hand.
Also, the court relied on Pradeep’s identification of Nazim and Qasim as members of the mob. However, he had mistaken another accused, Hasan, for Nazim. But neither the prosecution nor the defense paid any attention to this confusion.
In this case, the Court held, “Merely because a confusion arose and was not objected to by both the defense and the prosecution, the original identification of the accused Nazim by this witness cannot be ignored.” The court convicted both of them for rioting and murder.
2 acquitted after Pradeep’s testimony
The court again noted that Pradeep was the only witness who could prove that the accused was part of the mob. Javed had questioned Pradeep’s credibility as he had earlier identified him in another riot-related case (FIR 98/2020) registered at Khajuri Khas police station.
However, the court noted that the then discharge order showed that “nothing has been said about the credibility of this witness. He was acquitted because Pradeep was the only witness in the case. Whereas judicial decisions require “two or more witnesses”. The court convicted Javed of rioting and murder.
The court refused to rely on Pradeep’s testimony alone against Firoz. Firoz had argued that Pradeep had falsely implicated him “for personal reasons”. Initially, Pradeep had denied knowing Firoz personally, but Firoz had revealed that during his testimony in another riots case (FIR 98/2020), Pradeep had said that he had known Firoz “for 10-12 years…”.
The court said that it would not be safe to convict Firoz on the basis of Pradeep’s testimony and acquitted him of all charges. Similarly, the prosecution relied only on Pradeep’s testimony to prove its case against Muntazim. The court held that the arrest of the accused was not credible and acquitted him of all charges.
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