Muzaffarnagar Riot |Case: UP Court acquits BJP MLA citing lack of evidence

Muzaffarnagar: A special court at UP hearing 2013 Muzaffarnagar communal riots has acquitted a BJP MLA citing lack of evidence. Khatauli MLA Vikram Saini who was facing trial for his alleged role in riots was acquitted by Special Judge Gopal Upadhyay on Friday.

Upadhyay, who is heading a court for the trial of lawmakers, has acquitted 11 other accused too, ruling that the prosecution has failed to substantiate the charges of rioting and arson against them.

The MLA and 11 others had been facing the trial in a criminal case involving rioting, arson and issuance of threat to a public servant in Kawal village under Jansath police station in Muzaffarnagar district.

In the FIR lodged at the Jansath police station by Kawal village chowkidar Ishtiaq on August 27, Saini, the then Kawal village pradhan, and his associates were accused of setting ablaze the car of a village resident, Sarfaraz, and provoking breach of peace by threatening him and others, including the chowkidar.

According to the FIR lodged against them, they had allegedly set afire the car after returning from the cremation of three youths Gaurav, Sachin and Shahnawaz of the village killed earlier in a communal clash in the village.

In the communal riots triggered by the killings of the three youths of the Kawal village, 60 people had been killed while over 40,000 people had left the district.