Delhi Riots: False Witnesses, Fabricated Evidence
Savera
IN a shocking revelation, an analysis by the Indian Express (published on September 17, 2025) shows that in the criminal cases filed after the deadly Delhi riots of 2020, nearly one fifth of acquittals were due to fabricated evidence, fictitious witnesses, police dictated statements, imaginary ‘facts’ added by investigating officers, and synthetic narratives. These conclusions by judges resulted in acquittals in 17 of the 93 cases of acquittals that the newspaper analysed. In all 695 cases related to the 2020 riots are ongoing in the lower courts of Delhi out of which verdicts have been issued in 116 cases as of end August 2025. Of these 116 cases, 97 resulted in acquittals.
The wheels have come off the much-applauded diligence and efforts of the Delhi Police, which is directly controlled by none other than Home Minister Amit Shah. On March 11, 2020, just a few weeks after the riots, Shah had made a long statement in Parliament congratulating Delhi Police for its work and informed that 700 FIR’s had been registered, 2647 people had been detained/arrested, CCTV footage was being analysed on 25 computers, facial recognition software was being used to identify people by matching this footage to the government databases of voter ID, driving licenses etc. He said 40 teams were working to collect scientific evidence, and two Special Investigation Teams (SIT’s) were being formed to look into 49 serious cases. He also informed the House that there was a larger conspiracy behind the riots and a separate case would deal with that – the details of which have been discussed in an earlier article in People’s Democracy. In general, Shah conveyed a sense of an aggressive and astute leader, marshaling dozens of personnel and the latest technology to bring justice to thousands of families who had suffered in the carnage leaving 53 dead and 700 injured.
The Express investigation reveals the harsh reality: how at the ground level, police officials concocted and fabricated stories to make these cases that were supposed to bring the criminals to book and deliver justice. And, mind you, all this was done in order to not only please the masters in the government but also to validate the theory that Shah had himself presented to Parliament in the same speech. This was the so called ‘larger conspiracy’ theory according to which a bunch of urban naxals and jehadists had conspired to agitate and mislead people against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) causing huge protests to erupt in the Capital, and then cunningly manipulated this upsurge into widespread violence, to show the government in poor light especially when the then President of US, Donald Trump was visiting the city. The false and fabricated evidence, the police dictated statements – everything – was in the service of proving this so-called larger conspiracy.
According to the Indian Express, the courts found that the police had either introduced “artificial” witnesses or inserted “fabricated” evidence in at least 12 cases. In at least two cases, witnesses testified that the recorded statements being presented as theirs by the police were actually not their own but were “dictated or supplemented by the police”. In one case, the judge also pointed to the “manipulation” of case records.
The Indian Express quotes from the order given by Additional Sessions Judge Parveen Singh in August in one of these cases at the New Usmanpur police station: “There has been an egregious padding of evidence by the IO and this has resulted in serious trampling of the rights of the accused who have been probably charge sheeted only in order to show that this case is worked out… Such instances lead to serious erosion of the faith of the people in the investigating process and the rule of law.”
In two cases, police falsely asserted that the complainant can identify the accused Noor Mohammed but failed to carry out a Test Identification Parade (TIP) leading the court to infer that the police knew well that the case against the accused was fabricated. In another case, the court in its verdict said, “Even the actual existence of any such person called Md. Aslam, who witnessed the commission of the alleged offences, comes under a shadow of doubt, and the possibility of him being a fictitious person cannot be denied.”
In some cases, police personnel themselves were put up as false witnesses by the prosecution as pointed out in the verdict of another case where the judge wrote: “In these circumstances, it is probable that an artificial claim of having seen accused Noora among the rioters… was made by PW (Prosecution Witness) 4 [Constable Rohtash].” Many so-called witnesses were put up by the police and exposed during the trials. As one of the verdicts noted “This consistency in the omission in the testimony of these police witnesses, indicate towards a possibility of fixed line of statement to be made by them… That situation indicates towards a possibility of artificial claim of witnessing the incident… (by) three alleged eye witnesses.” In two cases, the respective judges said that showing photographs of the accused after his arrest to prosecution witnesses gave the impression that the prosecution witness “was artificially made an eye witness to identify the accused persons.” In another case, the judge recorded in his verdict that there were only two ‘eye-witnesses’ presented by the prosecution and “both of them have denied identifying the accused as one of the rioters, and have further stated that the particulars in the complaint… were written by them at the dictation of the police.”
Several cases of fabricated evidence were pinpointed by the judges including where he noted that “identification of accused on 02.04.2020 was probably outcome of an afterthought development,” and another where the verdict concluded that “…process of identification of accused persons by these two victims/ injured officials is shadowed with clouds of doubt…” In another case, the judge noted that “…there is a probable manipulation in the case diary with regard to the statement (of a witness).”
CASE MANIPULATION
REPORTED EARLIER
Media reports in March 2020 (weeks after the riots) had recorded several cases of false implication of people in FIR’s. For example, it was reported that in FIR numbers 0066/2020, 0067/2020, 0068/2020, 0069/2020 and 0070/2020, filed at Dayalpur Police Station in East-Delhi under the Arms Act, 1959, the narrative is very similar, the only differences being names of the complainant and the place where the police claimed spotted the accused. All of them say that so and so constable found a suspicious man who tried to avoid the police, that he was accosted and searched, that a country made pistol was found on him, and he was detained. All these accused were Muslims. An advocate representing the accused was quoted in this media report as saying, “An incident of stone pelting was going on at two chaurahas near Dayalpur police station. Those who were caught between the rioting mobs somehow entered the police station to take refuge. Instead of escorting them to safer locations, the police detained, tortured and later arrested them,” he alleged. Police officials later denied these reports.
Another common occurrence reported by media in the aftermath of the riots was that FIR’s were being clubbed together to protect certain people of one community and dilute complaints of another community. In November 2023, a Delhi court censured the Delhi Police for wrongly clubbing of unrelated complaints. While related complaints can be clubbed together, especially in mass violence incidents, what happened in several cases in Delhi was patently illegal and malafide.
In one egregious case, Haji Hasim Ali lodged a complaint at Karawal Nagar police station after his two-storey house in Shiv Vihar was set ablaze by an armed mob on February 25. His complaint was merged with FIR No. 72/2020 lodged by one Naresh Chand, who too had alleged that his home and shop were burned by a rioting mob. Instead of arresting those who had been named in his complaint, the police nabbed Ali for allegedly setting Chand’s house and shop on fire and put him behind bars. Even the court, coming down heavily on the Delhi Police for its “callous attitude” while conducting the investigation, had expressed its surprise on the police action.
“It is really strange that the complaint with regard to burning of house of respondent no 1 (Ali) was clubbed with the complaint of one Naresh Chand, being case FIR No 72/2020, PS Karawal Nagar and later on the respondent no. 1 was arrested in the same matter, meaning thereby that he is not only complainant in the matter, but also an accused, which is an apparent absurdity,” Additional Sessions Judge Vinod Yadav had said on 26 March while hearing the matter.
This sorry saga of Delhi riots cases exposes the hijacking of investigating agencies by the ruling party to suit its toxic and divisive ideology yet again. Fortunately, judicial scrutiny was able to see through this dangerous ploy in some of the cases. But it casts a long shadow over the whole process of delivering justice and subverting the rule of law.
