Muzaffarnagar Riots: 40 Accused Acquitted in Last 2 Years, Says Report

New Delhi: In the last two years (January 2017-February 2019), around 40 accused in 10 cases of murders, four cases of gang-rapes and 26 cases of rioting in the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots, have been acquitted by the local court. This was because of the prosecution making a U-turn or witnesses turning hostile, says a report in The Indian Express.

“All the 40 acquittals have come in cases involving attacks on Muslims,” says the report. 

It has been six years since the riots took place but so far there has been only one conviction. The report says: “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.”

Following the killing of the two youths, there was large-scale rioting in Muzaffarnagar in the early September 2013, killing over 50 people and displacing over 50,000 others. Media reports attributed the murder of the two cousins to the ‘revenge of killing’ of another youth, Shahnawaz. Shahnawaz’s father had made Gaurav and Sachin and their family as accused in the murder case.

In the 10 death cases, a total of 53 men were accused. All of them have walked free. Besides, the accused in four cases of gang-rape and 26 cases of rioting have also been acquitted.

Detailing the reasons behind the acquittals, the report says: “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.”

Despite acquittals in all the 40 cases, the Uttar Pradesh government is not planning to challenge these in higher courts.

“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,” Dushyant Tyagi, District Government Counsel, Muzaffarnagar, was quoted as saying by The Indian Express.

Newsclick had reported that two of the eye-witnesses in the riots had claimed that they were being pressured to back out by the Uttar Pradesh police. Ikram, an eyewitness of the Muzaffarnagar riots, has claimed that he was allegedly shot by the UP police in broad daylight. His daughter Gulafsha had also alleged that the UP police wanted an ‘encounter’ of her father. Ikram and his father Nafedin are key witnesses in a murder case during the Muzaffarnagar communal riots in 2013.

Read More: Muzaffarnagar Riots: Eyewitness’s Family Claims UP Police Wants ‘Encounter’

The riots took place in August-September 2013 when Samajwadi Party (SP) was in power in Uttar Pradesh and Akhilesh Yadav was Chief Minister. In the Assembly polls in February-March 2017, the SP government was ousted by the Bharatiya Janata Party with Adityanath taking over as Chief Minister.