NEW DELHI: WhatsApp group “Kattar Hindu Ekta”, created during the north east Delhi riots in February, allegedly promoted enmity between different groups on the ground of religion and acted in a way which was prejudicial to the maintenance of harmony, the Delhi police has said in its supplementary charge sheet filed before a court here.
According to the chargesheet, the WhatsApp group was allegedly created on February 25 to take revenge from the Muslim community.
In the excerpts of the chats of the group filed in the charge sheet, one of the members alleged that RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) people have come to support them.
The police further furnished some chats of the group in the charge sheet, in which the group members allegedly used communal slurs and talked about vandalising madrasas, mosques and killing of Muslims.
The police filed the supplementary charge sheet on September 26 before Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Purushottam Pathak against nine persons in the case related to the alleged murder of Hashim Ali during the riots in Gokulpuri area.
“As per the chat of Whatsapp group, the accused persons. conspired to teach Muslims a lesson for attacking the Hindus. Equipped themselves with lathis. danda, sticks, swords, firearms etc and killed nine innocent Muslims persons including Hashim Ali and his brother Aamir Khan.
It is prima facie revealed that there was a well hatched conspiracy amongst the accused persons.
“Same is also evident from the fact that in order to take revenge from Muslims some youths of that area who failed to perceive the bottomless stupidity of the propaganda, they as saviours of their community created a Whatsapp group. The group members lost their individuality and started working with mob mind. ‘Jai Sri Ram’ and ‘Har Har Mahadev’ which are the sacred slogans and are attached to the victorious yelling, deaden their mind and paralyzed their creative nature. They planned the manner of committing offence of rioting, murder and other offences,” police alleged in the charge sheet.
In the supplementary charge sheet, police has booked the accused under sections 153-A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language etc) and 505 (public mischief) of the Indian Penal Code for allegedly assembling to take revenge against the other community and targeting the victims on the basis of their religious identity.
The accused– Lokesh Kumar Solanki, Pankaj Sharma, Summit Chaudhary, Ankit Chaudhary, Prince, Jatin Sharma, Vivek Panchal, Rishabh Chaudhary, Himanshu Thakur– are currently in judicial custody in the case.
“During the investigation and from the report of retrieving data of seized mobile phones revealed that the above mentioned report/result of Whatsapp group ‘Kattar Hindu Ekta’, group, it is also clear that there are averments in respect of promoting enmity between different groups on the ground of religion and acting in a way that are prejudicial to the maintenance of harmony,” the charge sheet claimed.
They were earlier charge sheeted in June for the offences under 144 (joining unlawful assembly armed with deadly weapon), 147 and 148 (rioting), 149 (unlawful assembly), 302 (murder), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence), 427 (mischief), mischief by causing inundation or obstruction to public drainage), 435 (mischief by fire or explosive substance), 120-B (criminal conspiracy) and 34 (common intention) of IPC.
The offences entail a maximum punishment of death penalty.
The supplementary charge sheet said that the police has sent a letter to the concerned authorities for obtaining the sanction required for prosecution for offences against the state and criminal conspiracy to commit such offence, which was awaited.
It said co-accused Monty Nagar, Avdesh Mishra,Monu, Sahil, Shekhar, Mongli, Baba, Tinku and Vinay were to be arrested but their addresses could not be traced till now.
According to the charge sheet, some of the messages sent by the group members were “Do not give them flats on rent”, “Their eyes are on our sisters, daughters, land”, We will burn everything of theirs like we burned the madrasa today”, “Do not leave them, kill them”.
They also allegedly discussed about arrangements of stones, bricks, pistols and talked about demolition of a madrasa by the mob of rioters, according to the excerpts.
It claimed that the mob turned rioters and allegedly murdered Ali by inflicting multiple injuries in a brutal manner and with a view to conceal the evidence, all of them in furtherance of their common intention threw his dead body in the drain.
“There cannot be any doubt that the accused who killed Hashim Ali were certainly up to their neck in the conspiracy and were thus very active members of the unlawful assembly,” it said.
Communal clashes had broken out in northeast Delhi on February 24 after violence between citizenship law supporters and protesters spiralled out of control leaving at least 53 people dead and around 200 injured.