15 hours ago
‘This is not justice': Father laments after court acquits 12 men accused of killing his sons during Delhi riots
In the dimly lit ground floor of his small house in northeast Delhi 's Mustafabad, Babu Khan sits hunched in a plastic chair as the air fills with the rhythmic clicking of sewing machines operated by his wife and daughter.
Together, on a good day, they earn up to Rs500 (£4.25) but on some days, nothing. The family's monthly income rarely touches Rs7,000 (£60.50).
It's daytime but sunlight barely filters in, making it hard to tell day from night indoors. The main door is the sole source of natural light in the room, which opens into a narrow, 500m alleyway no wider than three feet.
This is the world left behind by Aamir Ali and his brother Hashim Ali whose bodies were found in a drain near Bhagirathi Vihar on 27 February 2020 following riots in the national capital.
In a set of rulings related to one of the deadliest episodes of religious violence in India, a Delhi court recently acquitted 18 people accused of killing Muslim men, including the Ali brothers, during the riots.
For the family of Aamir and Hashim, the ruling is the latest blow in their long quest for justice – a wait they now fear may never end.
Over three days of bloodshed, at least 53 people, mostly Muslims, were killed and more than 200 injured as mobs laid siege to Muslim neighbourhoods, burning homes, shops and mosques in what survivors and rights groups have since called a pogrom.
The trigger for the riots was a citizenship law introduced in 2019 that critics say marginalises India's Muslim minority. Clashes broke out between those opposing the citizenship law and those supporting it with Hindus and Muslims both blaming each other for starting the riots.
Five years later, a court has thrown out murder charges in three of the cases, citing insufficient or inconsistent evidence, including WhatsApp group chats that investigators presented as confessions but the presiding judge dismissed as boastful rather than factual in a series of orders delivered in mid-May.
Those acquitted included 12 men charged with killing Aamir, and another Muslim man named Akil Ahmed, whose body was recovered from the same drain. These 12 men were previously acquitted in April in the murder of Hashim and in March of two other Muslim men in separate orders wherein same WhatsApp chats were presented as evidence, reported the Indian Express.
'I learnt about the judgment only on 13 May,' Khan, 60, says, his voice hollowed by grief. 'We are still fighting the fight. But everyone knows what a crime has been committed against us. We have not received justice.'
'This is not justice,' he emphasises to The Independent. 'We will appeal in the high court.'
On 26 February, at around 9.15pm, Aamir had called his father to say that they were near the Gokalpuri neighbourhood and coming home. Minutes later, their phones were unreachable.
'We looked for them all night,' Khan says. 'Next morning, we went to the police. They called us to identify three bodies. Two of them were my sons.'
Postmortem reports revealed Aamir had sustained 25 injuries, including severe burns, and died from shock induced by head trauma.
'My life has been miserable since that night,' Khan says, staring at the wall. 'I have been fighting death every day. I can't even walk up to the road. Who should I share my grief with? And what's the point?'
The police initially filed a murder and rioting case at the capital's Gokalpuri station, later transferring it to the Crime Branch's Special Investigation Team. The prosecution alleged that a Hindu mob – chanting religious slogans and armed with rods, swords and stones – had caught hold of the two brothers, confirmed they were Muslim, beaten them, and thrown them into the drain.
Twelve men – Lokesh Kumar Solanki alias Rajput, Sumit Chaudhary alias Badshah, Prince alias DJ Walla, Rishabh Chaudhary alias Tapash, Pankaj Sharma, Jatin Sharma alias Rohit, Vivek Panchal alias Nandu, Sahil alias Babu, Sandeep alias Mogli, Ankit Chaudhary alias Fauzi, Himanshu Thakur, and Tinku Arora – were initially charged with murder, conspiracy and rioting.
Two other accused – Pawan Kumar alias Lokesh and Lalit Kumar alias Rahul Chaudhary – were booked for destroying evidence and receiving stolen property.
In late May, however, judge Pulastya Pramachala threw out the murder case saying there was no 'conclusive evidence' connecting the accused to the crime or establishing the presence of a riotous mob at the scene.
The prosecution leaned heavily on digital data and chats from a WhatsApp group which had been created a few days before the carnage. One message allegedly sent by one of the accused, Lokesh Kumar Solanki, read, in Hindi: 'Your brother (referring to himself) killed two Muslims near Bhagirathi Vihar around 9pm and threw them in the drain.'
The judge deemed the message boastful and not evidentiary. 'Such messages may have been to impress or boast among group members rather than serve as factual confessions,' he observed, stressing that extrajudicial confessions required corroboration.
The judge concluded that while Aamir and Hashim were likely killed and their bodies dumped in the drain, but there was no 'incriminating evidence' to link the 12 accused to the crime.
'It can be inferred from the circumstances that it was a case of culpable homicide,' Pramachala ruled.
He quoted multiple Supreme Court precedents emphasising that circumstantial evidence must form an unbroken chain excluding all other possibilities to justify conviction. In this instance, the judge ruled the evidence fell short.
In a related ruling, Judge Pramachala convicted Solanki of promoting enmity and inciting communal violence through the WhatsApp group. He held that while no direct connection to the murders was proven, his messages fomented communal discord.
For Khan and his family, the ruling offers no relief. 'We now know there is nothing like justice,' Khan says. 'But hope is all we have. And God will definitely listen someday.' His wife, he says, is chronically unwell.
Aamir worked for ride-hailing apps and also dealt in scrap. His younger brother sold jeans. Between them, they carried the weight of the household. 'What did my children ever do to anyone?' he asks. 'You get joy from helping others, from feeding someone. What kind of people get joy from killing?'
His voice breaks. 'They were worse than animals.'
Judge Pramachala, acquitting the 12 men in the murder trial of Akil Ahmed, said the prosecution had failed to establish how, when or by whom the Muslim man was killed.
His postmortem had confirmed Akil died from blunt force trauma. The prosecution alleged that he had been killed during a targeted attack on Muslims by a Hindu mob.
As in Aamir's case, the police relied for evidence on WhatsApp chats from the WhatsApp group which they claimed the accused men had used to coordinate attacks on Muslims.
In this case as well, the court found the prosecution's case entirely circumstantial. 'There is no evidence to even show as to when, where and how Akil was killed,' Pramachala ruled.
Key prosecution witnesses either failed to identify the accused or denied having seen the killing. One witness said he saw a mob chasing two bikers and one man being beaten and thrown into a drain but could not confirm the victim's identity.
This testimony, the judge said, 'on its face value, establishes that two persons and a bike were thrown into the drain' but 'is totally silent in respect of alleged incident with deceased herein'.
The prosecution also relied on statements from police personnel and WhatsApp chats attributed to accused Lokesh Solanki.
The judge said these chats did not name any specific victim or mention Akil and dismissed them as inadequate to establish guilt. Testimony from a policeman who claimed to have overheard rioters naming some of the accused was also rejected as hearsay.
The court further ruled on the charge of receiving stolen property. Accused Munesh Kumar had in his possession a mobile phone previously used by Akil. Prosecutors alleged it had been stolen after the murder.
However, Pramachala said that no effort had been made to trace the phone's purchase or prove Kumar knew it was stolen. "Mere possession of stolen property does not establish guilt,' the judge said.
In another judgment related to the 2020 carnage, Pramachala acquitted six men accused of murdering a young Muslim man named Shahbaz.
He ruled that the prosecution had failed to prove the men were part of the mob that beat and burned Shahbaz alive.
Shahbaz, 22, was last heard from on the afternoon of 25 February 2020, when he phoned his brother, Matloob, from Karawal Nagar in northeast Delhi.
The area was engulfed in violence, sparked by protests over the controversial law introduced by prime minister Narendra Modi's government. When Matloob tried calling back at 3pm, the phone was switched off. Shahbaz never reached home.
His charred remains – only his skull and pelvic bones could be identified– were discovered by police officer Naveen Kumar near a rubbish dump on Pusta Road. His identity was later confirmed by DNA testing.
One witness said he saw a Muslim boy being attacked and set on fire by a group of Hindu men near the dump yard. Another said he had seen a mob and the burned body in the same location.
But the court found no evidence that tied the six accused – Aman, Vikram alias Vicky, Rahul Sharma, Ravi Sharma, Dinesh Sharma and Ranjeet Rana – to the mob responsible.
The prosecution's key witnesses either failed to identify the accused or retracted their earlier statements. Two individuals cited as having heard extrajudicial confessions also turned hostile.
Aamir has left behind three daughters, the youngest of whom was born after his death.
'What do we tell them?' Khan asks. 'We used to console them for a long time but now they know the truth – their father was murdered.'
