A Madhya Pradesh sessions court has acquitted 11 men accused in the 2022 Khargone Ram Navami violence after the prosecution’s case collapsed with eight of its 11 eyewitnesses failing to identify any of the accused and laboratory findings failing to establish the alleged use of petrol bombs or any explosive substance.
The case arose from the communal violence that erupted in Khargone on April 10, 2022 during Ram Navami processions.
According to the prosecution, mobs armed with stones, swords and petrol bombs attacked houses in the Bhatwadi locality between 6 pm and 9 pm, setting homes and motorcycles on fire, damaging property and allegedly trespassing into residences. One man, identified as Idris Khan, was killed in the violence.
Police charged 11 men — Ibadat, Sadiq, Abdullah, Saheb alias Shahib, Sheryar, Faizal, Azam, Shabbir, Imran, Mustaq and Rajik — with rioting, arson, house trespass and offences under the Explosive Substances Act in connection with the violence.
A day after the violence, the district administration had carried out a demolition drive, razing 16 houses and 29 shops in five localities of the town. The then Madhya Pradesh Home Minister, Narottam Mishra, had said “Jis ghar se patthar aaye hain, us ghar ko hi pattharon ka dher banayenge (Will turn the houses from where the stones were hurled to a heap of rubble).”
In a detailed judgment Monday, Fourth Additional Sessions Judge Mukesh Nath held that the prosecution’s case collapsed on the question of identification. The court found that eight of the 11 eyewitnesses examined by the prosecution completely failed to implicate the accused, no test identification parade was ever conducted, there was no explanation on how police selected the accused from a mob of about 50 people, and forensic evidence failed to establish the alleged use of petrol bombs.
The court recorded that eight prosecution witnesses, including complainants and victims, “did not support the prosecution story.”
“None of these eight witnesses identified any of the accused; none stated that any accused had committed any act constituting the incident; no substantive evidence emerged in their testimonies against any accused,” it said.
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