News Analysis India

Tag: Muzaffarnagar Riot Case

  • Khatauli BJP MLA Vikram Saini acquitted in 2013 Muzaffarnagar riot case

    By PTI

    MUZAFFARNAGAR: A BJP MLA facing trial for his alleged role in the 2013 Muzaffarnagar communal riots case was on Friday acquitted by a special court here for the lack of evidence.

    Special Judge Gopal Upadhyay, heading a court for the trial of lawmakers, acquitted Khatauli MLA Vikram Saini, along with 11 others, ruling that the prosecution has failed to substantiate the charges of rioting and arson against them.

    The MLA and 11 others had been facing the trial in a criminal case involving rioting, arson and issuance of threat to a public servant in Kawal village under Jansath police station in Muzaffarnagar district.

    In the FIR lodged at the Jansath police station by Kawal village chowkidar Ishtiaq on August 27, Saini, the then Kawal village pradhan, and his associates were accused of setting ablaze the car of a village resident, Sarfaraz, and provoking breach of peace by threatening him and others, including the chowkidar.

    According to the FIR lodged against them, they had allegedly set afire the car after returning from the cremation of three youths – Gaurav, Sachin and Shahnawaz – of the village killed earlier in a communal clash in the village.

    In the communal riots triggered by the killings of the three youths of the Kawal village, 60 people had been killed while over 40,000 people had left the district.

  • 20 more acquitted in 2013 Muzaffarnagar riot case

    By PTI

    MUZAFFARNAGAR: A court here has acquitted twenty more accused in a 2013 Muzaffarnagar communal riot case due to lack of evidence against them.

    Additional District and Sessions Judge Kamla Pati has acquitted them Tuesday saying the prosecution has failed to prove charges against them.

    The acquitted accused were identified as Kapil, Dushyant, Ajay, Ravinder, Vikas, Rahul, Sachin, Amit, Rajiv, Jaipal, Anuj, Sudhir, Kuldeep, Mohit, Baru and five others, all of Lank village in the district.

    In an FIR lodged at Phugana police station in the district on September 8, 2013, all twenty men were accused of barging into the house of their neighbour Abdul Hasan and shooting him dead after slitting his throat.

    The case had been registered on the complaint of the victim’s brother.

    The acquitted people had also been accused of looting gold and jewellery worth over Rs 6 lakh from their house.

    Following the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots, which had left around 60 people dead and triggered a mass exodus from the district, the police had lodged a total of 510 cases and arrested 1,480 people allegedly involved in riots.

    The Special Investigation Team of Uttar Pradesh has filed so far charge sheets in 175 cases after investigating them.

    The court has decided 99 cases till now, acquitting a total of 1,198 accused due to lack of evidence in 98 of them.

    The sole case which has ended in conviction pertained to the killing of two men, Gaurav and Sachin, on August 27, 2013.

    Seven people — Muzammil, Mujassim, Furkan, Nadeem, Janangir, Afzal and Ikbal — were sentenced to life imprisonment in February 2019 in this case, which is believed to have triggered the riots.