NEW DELHI: A Delhi court has pulled up the investigating officer for allegedly implicating the accused using a “manipulated video” in a February 2020 riots case and asked the police commissioner to take note. Further, additional sessions judge Pulastya Pramachala rapped the police official for his “unprofessional conduct” in clubbing six complaints in the case without a complete and proper investigation.
“Instead of finding the actual culprits who were seen in the clip,” the court said in an order on January 8, “the IO framed Sandeep Bhati for assaulting the victim and even the source of the video clip received on WhatsApp was not traced.”
Bhati was accused of several offences, including attempt to murder, rioting, theft and arson and a case was registered at Karawal Nagar Police Station.
The court held the victim had received gunshot wounds during an assault by a riotous mob on February 24, 2020, at Shiv Vihar in northeast Delhi.
The court however said the only piece of evidence against Bhati were two video clips, of which the accused was not seen in one clip whereas the other clip reportedly showed him stopping others from assaulting the victim.
“Investigating officer (IO) did not use that longer video, rather he cut short that video for five seconds, to omit the portion showing the role of the accused as stopping others from assaulting the victim,” the court said.
There remained no doubt in the mind of the court that the IO did not properly investigate the case and the accused was falsely implicated on the basis of the “manipulated” video.
The IO was said to have also clubbed six more complaints in the case based on the presumption that the same mob was involved in the rioting incidents but apart from the complainants’ testimonies, there was no evidence to establish the alleged incidents.
The judge pulled up the IO for “literally shrugging off his duty to properly investigate all these complaints and to submit his report based on complete investigation”.
“Giving any finding qua these six complaints in this case, on the basis of illegal and unprofessional conduct of IO to simply club them in this case without complete and proper investigation, will be injustice with these six complainants,” it held.
The order further directed, “I deem it fit to refer this matter to commissioner of police, to make assessment of the conduct of IO, in the background of observations made herein above, and to take suitable steps.”
