On March 6, a Sessions Court in Delhi ordered to frame charges against Salman, Sonu Saifi, Mohd. Arif, Anish Qureshi, Sirajuddin, Mohd. Furkan, Mohd. Irshad, and Mohd. Mustaqueem for various offences, including the murder of Rahul Solanki and the vandalisation of the shop of a Hindu owner during the anti-Hindu Delhi riots of 2020.
As per the prosecution, a Hindu man named Rahul Solanki was killed as the mob shot him, and a shop of Hindu owner Sanjeev Kaushik was vandalised and set ablaze. Additional Sessions Judge Pulastya Pramachala passed the order to frame charges against the accused.
The orders by the court noted, “I find that Salman, Sonu Saifi, Mohd. Arif, Anish Qureshi, Sirajuddin, Mohd. Furkan, Mohd. Irshad, and Mohd. Mustaqueem is liable to be tried for offences punishable under sections 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting, armed with a deadly weapon), 153 A (punishment for promoting enmity between different groups on the ground of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc.)”.
The court ordered to frame charges under other sections as well, including Sections 380 (theft in dwelling house), 427 (mischief causing damage of Rs 50 or upwards), 436 (mischief by fire or explosive substance with intent to destroy a house, etc.) 450 (house-trespass in order to commit an offence punishable with imprisonment for life), 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of the offence committed in prosecution of common object) and 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant) of the IPC and 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The three accused, Salman, Sonu Saifi and Mohd. Mustaqueem were also charged under provisions of the Arms Act. The judge added, “The person who remained a member of this mob remained voluntarily part of it, despite seeing the actions of this mob, which included mindless firing, pelting of stones, throwing petrol bombs at the group of Hindus and therefore, it cannot be assumed that firing at Rahul Solanki was solitary action of one individual, which had no connection with the common object of the aforesaid mob.”
Refusing to give any benefit of the doubt to the accused, the court said that just because the other members of the mob could not be identified, the accused were not accompanied to benefit. In the present case, the court noted that all the accused indulged in targeting Hindus. The court said, “All accused indulged in targeting Hindus, and their such acts were apparently prejudicial to the harmony between communities of Muslims and Hindus, and they did disturb the public tranquillity through their actions.” Furthermore, evidence showed that Salman and Mustaqueem fired gunshots, and police recovered one pistol each from Sonu Saifi and Mustaqueem.
The court also rejected the argument for discharge of the accused as there was an alleged delay in sending bullets to the forensic science laboratory, the unavailability of the video of the post-mortem, the absence of a conclusive report from FSL for Mustaqueem’s pistol and the absence of test identification parade of accused except Mustaqueem.
The judge added, “I have considered all these contentions, but I do not find the discharge of any accused being made out on the basis of these contentions, in view of the evidence of identification of all the accused persons as part of the riotous mob.”
Notably, all the accused were discharged from Sections 295 A (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) and 120 B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC.
The murder of Rahul Solanki
Eight persons were booked for the murder of Rahul Solanki, who was killed during the anti-Hindu Delhi riots of 2020. Seven of them were arrested based on the CCTV footage, witness statements, and call records. Mustaqueem was the last person to be arrested by Delhi Police in September 2020 for the alleged murder of Rahul Solanki, who was killed in Shiv Vihar adjoining the Rajdhani school.
The charge sheet stated that Solanki was murdered near his house in the Dayal Pur area around 5 pm on February 24 during the communal riots that took place near Shiv Vihar.
Rahul Solanki, a resident of Shiv Vihar, was pursuing his LLB from a private college in Ghaziabad. He had stepped out from his residence to buy milk when rioters in Shiv Vihar shot him in the right shoulder near his neck. He was shot dead when he was standing near Pal dairy street adjoining Rajdhani school.
One of the accused, Salman, had confessed to the police that he knew Rahul very well as Rahul’s brother Rohit used to play cricket with his group. Salman had said to the police that he had joined the violent Muslim mob and unleashed terror on the streets of Delhi “to save Islam”.
The killing of Ramesh Solanki had occurred close to Anil Sweets, where the Muslim mobs had killed and burnt down another Hindu youth Dilbar Singh Negi on February 24.
Later, it was reported that Mustaqeem admitted to killing Solanki. Police said, “Initially, he had denied his involvement in the murder, but later, when confronted with evidence, he confessed to having opened fire at Solanki.”
