A local court in Delhi on Friday (May 22, 2026) discharged 18 accused, including six who died during the trial, in the 2007 Jamia Nagar riots case and criticised the “concocted” police investigation in the 19-year-old incident.

In a 95-page order, Special Judge Vishal Gogne of the Rouse Avenue Court also framed charges against 13 accused persons, including former Congress MLA Asif Mohammed Khan, holding that there was sufficient material to proceed against those named in the FIR.

The case relates to violence that took place on September 22, 2007, at the Jamia Nagar police post, where, according to the prosecution, a crowd that had gathered following police action to remove market encroachments during Ramzan turned violent and attacked police personnel. The FIR alleged that the mob grew to around 1,000–1,500 people, torched the police post, damaged vehicles and looted police property. A total of 36 people were chargesheeted in the case.

The court held that the material on record established a prima facie case of an unlawful assembly with the common object of attacking the police post and causing widespread violence. It noted that witness statements and circumstances surrounding the incident created “grave suspicion” regarding the role of certain accused persons.

The judge also underlined the absence of a test identification parade (TIP) and said that it created substantial doubts about the validity of the identification of the accused through police witnesses.

“In the present investigation, it does weigh with the court that not only did the police officials avoid conducting a test identification parade of the 11 persons who were arrested at the identification of at least two police personnel each; the investigating officer even failed to consider the possibility of seeking arrest upon identification by one police witness while enabling TIP through the second police witness,” the court said.

“Any interpretation of the evidence and the circumstances in which evidence has been collected or projected, which probabilise a high-handed and blanket implication of accused persons, would certainly lower the aspersion of culpability from grave suspicion to mere suspicion. Such a prospect entitles the accused to discharge,” the judge observed.

The court said the arrest of two more accused persons later was similar to that of the 11 arrested earlier, and that these arrests bore the “hallmarks of a contrived and pre-determined arrest”, which did not occur in the manner asserted in the chargesheet or through the statements of the police witnesses.

The court attached considerable significance to the fact that the mob had dispersed after the incident and that the 13 accused were arrested only the following day from different public locations. It observed that the arrests were neither immediate nor based on any exclusive knowledge of the police personnel who later identified the accused. Given these circumstances, the judge said a TIP was essential and not merely a matter of prudence.

The court directed that charges be framed against 13 accused for offences including unlawful assembly, rioting, arson, dacoity, attempt to murder, assault, obstruction of public servants, and causing damage to public property.

The order also noted that proceedings against five accused had abated before the commencement of the trial following their deaths, while one accused remained a proclaimed offender.