A Delhi Court on Friday framed charges against former Aam Aadmi Party Counsellor Tahir Hussain, his brother Shah Alam and four other men in a case of the 2020 Delhi pogrom, LiveLaw reported.
Additional Sessions Judge Pulastya Pramachala observed that the mob hatched a conspiracy “to kill Hindus and harm (their) properties”.
Tahir Hussain is also booked under UAPA in FIR 59/2020 in which Muslim student leaders and activists are booked for larger conspiracy to orchestrate violence.
The case FIR 91/2020 was registered at Dayyalpur Police Station after information was received from Shushrut Trauma Centre regarding firearm injury to Ajay Jha in the Chand Bagh area in February 2020.
Tahir Hussain, Shah Alam, Gulfam, Tanveer Malik, Nazim and Kasim are charged under sections 147, 148, 153A, 302, 307, 120B, 153A and 149 of IPC. Additional charges under Section 27 of the Arms Act have been framed against accused Gulfam and Tanveer Malik.
Last month, Delhi High Court refused to stay criminal proceedings against Tahir Hussain in connection with three FIRs registered against him pertaining to his involvement in the 2020 riots in Northeast Delhi.
Jha told the police that on February 25, 2020, he reached Tahir Hussain’s house and saw a number of persons present on the terrace who were firing gunshots and pelting petrol bombs and stones at nearby houses.
He also alleged that Tahir Hussain and his brother Shah Alam along with others were pelting stones and throwing petrol bombs on the houses of Hindus and were also occasionally firing weaopons. As per Jha, the mob was raising religious slogans.
Tahir’s four-storey building at Khajuri Khas became one of the sites of anti-Muslim violence on 24 February 2020. He made 12 calls to the police to rescue Muslims who took shelter in his building.
Visuals from the day show hundreds of Hindu mob gathered outside his building with weapons, raising slogans.
Framing charges against the six accused, the court observed that merely because statements of eyewitnesses were recorded at a belated stage, it cannot declare them to be unreliable without affording an opportunity to the prosecution and the witnesses to explain the reasons.
