The march of justice in India: In 40 of 41 Muzaffarnagar riot cases, including murder, all accused are acquitted
Five prosecution
witnesses did a U-turn in court to say they weren’t present when their
relatives were murdered - when the FIRs mentioned otherwise.
# Six prosecution witnesses turned hostile
and deposed that police forced them to sign blank papers.
# Police did not produce murder weapons in
court in five cases.
# The prosecution never cross-examined
police on these.
# In the end, all witnesses turned hostile.
These are among the
several glaring holes Indian
Express found in the Uttar Pradesh government’s prosecution cases
in 10 murder cases filed on the violence that swept through Muzaffarnagar in
2013, killing at least 65 people. Based on the testimonies, and holding that
witnesses, mostly relatives of those killed, had turned hostile, the courts
acquitted all in the 10 murder trials that ended between January 2017 and
February 2019. In fact, since 2017,
Muzaffarnagar courts have delivered verdicts in 41 cases linked to the riots - and delivered a conviction in just one case of murder. All 40 acquittals have
come in cases involving attacks on Muslims. All these were
registered and launched under the Akhilesh Yadav government. The
trials spanned both his and the current BJP government.
The only
conviction came on February 8 this year, when the sessions court sentenced
seven accused - Muzammil, Mujassim, Furkan, Nadeem, Janangir, Afzal and Ikbal - to life in prison for the murder of cousins Gaurav and Sachin in Kawal village
on August 27, 2013, the incident that is said to have triggered the riots. The Indian Express
scrutinised court records and testimonies of complainants and witnesses and
interviewed officials in the 10 cases of acquittal to find that - from one
family burnt alive to three friends dragged into a field and killed, from a
father hacked to death with swords to an uncle beaten to death with spades - 53
men accused of murder walked free. That’s not all, a
similar trend has emerged in four cases of gangrape and 26 cases of rioting, as
well.
The UP government says
it’s not planning to appeal. Speaking to The Indian Express, Dushyant Tyagi,
District Government Counsel, Muzaffarnagar, said: “We are not filing appeals in
any of 2013 Muzaffarnagar riot cases, which ended in acquittal, because in all
cases, the prime witnesses were declared hostile by court after they did not
support the prosecution theory. The chargesheets against the accused were filed
on the statement of witnesses.” According to Tyagi,
notices have been issued to all hostile witnesses under Section 344 of the Code
of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), which mandates a summary trial procedure for
false evidence.
Consider the key
findings from court records of the 10 murder cases that ended in acquittals:
# 69 men were named by complainants but
only 24 were put on trial. Another 45 men who were put on trial were not even
mentioned in the original complaint.
# While each FIR mentions murder weapons,
police recovered this crucial piece of evidence only in five cases. For
instance, in the murder of three men, Amroj, Meherban and Ajmal, in Bhudhana on
September 8, 2013, the court passed acquittal orders in three separate cases.
The murder weapon, a ‘balakatti’ (sickle), was recovered by police from one of
the accused. But in one case, the weapon was not produced in court; in the
second, it was placed as evidence but police said it “did not contain any
bloodstains” and, therefore, they “did not send it for further scientific analysis”;
in the third, it was placed but no police witness was examined about its
recovery.
# In the murder of couple Asimuddin and
Halima, in Phugana on September 8, 2013, police named two independent witnesses
to prove the search and seizure of evidence. But both deposed that no such
seizure took place in their presence and that they were asked to sign on “blank
paper” by police. Similarly, in the murder of Rojuddin in Titawi on September
8, the independent witness said no seizure took in place in his presence, and
that “all documents were prepared in the police station” before his signatures
were taken by police.
# In the murders of three men, Sharique in
Mirapur, Rojuddin killed in Titawi and Nadeem in Mirapur, the prosecution named
doctors who conducted the postmortem as witnesses. But in court, the doctors
were only asked to “prove”, or verify, the medical examination documents. The
prosecution did not cross-examine them on the nature of injuries or the cause
of death.
# In the murder of Asimudin and Halima, the
prosecution did not produce a postmortem report, on which the court noted: “The
prosecution has placed only the complaint, the FIR, the general diary entry and
site plan of the recovery. No other document or evidence has been produced by
the prosecution.”
One illustrative case
among the 10 that ended in acquittal is the killing of Islam (65) on September
8, 2013, under the Phugana police station in Muzaffarnagar. The FIR filed by
Islam’s son Zarif states that “the accused Harpal, Sunil, Brahm Singh, Sripal,
Chasmveer, Vinod, Sumit, Kuldeep, Aravind, raising religious slogans, attacked
my family with weapons. Sripal hit my father’s head with a sharp weapon and six
others attacked him with swords. They set the house on fire. My brother rushed
my father to the government hospital where he was declared dead.”
But during the trial,
Zarif, according to the acquittal order, told the court, “My father was
murdered and the complaint was written by Gulzar (a relative). I only signed on
the complaint. The accused present in the court were not involved in the
incident.” Three other witnesses, too, said the accused weren’t involved. Speaking to The Indian
Express, Zarif, a labourer, doesn’t remember the date when he deposed before
the trial court and turned hostile. In court records, his testimony states that
he failed to identify the accused.
But his memories of
the day his father was killed are vivid. “He died in hospital, hours after he
was murdered. He had identified Harpal, Sunil, Sripal, Chasmveer, Vinod, Sumit
Pal, Kuldeep and Arvind from our village. These names feature in the FIR
because my father identified all the accused,” he said. “All the Muslim
families fled the village and only we stayed back. Village elders, including
the sarpanch, took us to the mosque and assured that we will be protected.
Since the promise was made inside a place of worship, we believed them,” he
said.
“But within hours, we
sensed the situation getting tense. My father called the thana in-charge but he
did not respond. We requested a local politician for help and he said the Army
was on its away. But by then, it was too late. The same people, who assured
that we would be safe, attacked and killed my father.” However, on October 9,
2018, before judge Himanshu Bhatnagar at the Muzaffarnagar sessions court,
Zarif, as per records, refused to identify any of the accused.
“Village elders, including the sarpanch, took
us to the mosque and assured that we will be protected. Since the promise was
made inside a place of worship, we believed them.” Asked why, Zarif said:
“Those who have been acquitted are the ones involved in the murder. Because of
our weakness, we had to compromise. If we had the capacity, we would have
fought the case up to the High Court and Supreme Court. But when we don’t have
money to feed our families, what is the purpose of seeking justice from court?”
Like the other murder
cases that ended in acquittal, Islam’s trial is not just about his son turning
hostile. Court records show the investigation was riddled with contradictions. For instance, only
five of the eight men that Zarif had named - Harpal, Kuldeep, Chashmveer, Sunil
and Vinod - were put on trial. Zarif also alleged that police refused to record
his father’s statement before his death. “My father was alive for a few hours. He was
seriously injured but despite that, he asked police to record his statement, as
he had identified all the persons who attacked him. But instead, they took us
to Shamli hospital. We waited for hours but there were no police personnel to
record his statement. The most crucial evidence was never recorded because police
were protecting the accused,” he said.
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