By IANS
New Delhi : A city court Tuesday directed Delhi Police to register a case and probe the death of two people protesting the sealing of illegal industrial units seven years ago.
Additional Sessions Judge R.K. Yadav also asked the deputy commissioner of police (DCP), East District, to book the guilty for covering up the death of Irfan and Ajab Khan.
“The investigating officer has not bothered to probe into the cause of death of the deceased… He covered up their deaths with stern hand with an ill motive to disguise acts of his fellow policemen. The court cannot allow such a situation to occur,” the judge said.
The duo were killed when a police team opened fire allegedly to disperse people demonstrating against the Supreme court’s orders to seal illegal industrial units in the city.
The court questioned the police action but the police justified the firing on the plea that the crowd had turned violent and there was a threat to the lives of the policemen.
The deaths were virtually covered up by the police after they made out a case of rioting and unlawful assembly against 25 men, whom they arrested.
A mob Nov 20, 2000 had vent its anger against the sealing drive on the apex court’s orders and torched public buses and police vehicles.
The police said that a mob in Maujpur area in East Delhi district went out of control as the policemen asked them to disperse and fired tear-gas
shells.
Absolving all the 25 accused of various offences, the court said their mere presence in the gathering did not make them part of the unlawful assembly.
“For want of cogent and clinching evidence, the accused persons are entitled to acquittal,” the court said in its order.