Delhi Police Crime Branch on Thursday filed a charge sheet linking the Jahangirpuri violence with protests against Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) of 2019 and 2020 in Shaheen Bagh and the North-east Delhi riots in February 2020. Violent clashes broke out in Delhi’s Jahangirpuri on April 16 between two groups during a Hanuman Jayanti procession that left nine people injured, including eight police personnel and a civilian.
The charge sheet filed in the Rohini Court stated that the Jahangirpuri clash was a continuation of the protests against the CAA and NRC that rocked the national capital in 2019 and 2020 in Shaheen Bagh and the North-east Delhi riots in February 2020, which got further aggravated after Ram Navmi incidents on April 10.
After a preliminary FIR registered by Delhi Police on 16 April, investigation of the case was handed over to Crime Branch on 18 April.
According to the 2063-page-long charge sheet filed in the case, 37 accused were arrested and 8 accused are absconding against whom proceeding under Section 82 CrPC is underway. Thirteen teams of Crime Branch were deployed for verifying background details of the accused, dump data, technical (FRS) analyses, viral videos collections, CCTV footage collection, arrest of accused persons, financial aspects and conspiracy angle. According to the charge sheet, 34 viral videos and 56 videos from electronic media were collected and analyzed. The police arrested 20 out of 37 accused on the basis of CCTV footage and viral videos, even as 132 witnesses were examined including 85 police and 47 public persons. The police also recovered a nine fire arms, five live cartridges, two empty cartridges, nine swords and the clothes of 11 accused persons worn at the time of the incident, as they were seen in the videos.
According to Crime Branch, the investigation conducted so far and material on record have established that the present incident was in continuation of the protests against CAA and NRC in 2019 and 2020, the epicentre of which as Shaheen Bagh, and the riots that happened in North-east Delhi in February 2020, which got further aggravated after Ram Navami incidents on 10 April in different parts of the country.
Among the accused are two juveniles against whom police incident report has already been filed before the Principal JJ Board.