Delhi riots: Man gets 5-year jail term for arson, judge says 'very serious offence'

In the first sentencing in a case related to the northeast Delhi riots, a court here on Thursday awarded a five-year jail term to a man for putting a house belonging to an old woman on fire, saying that offence committed by him was a "very serious one".

Additional Sessions Judge Virender Bhat sentenced the 25-year-old Dinesh Yadav to five years in jail and directed him to pay Rs 12,000 to the victim as compensation.

Dinesh Yadav was convicted on December 6, 2021 for being an active member of the riotous mob and participating in vandalizing and putting on fire the house of a 73-year-old woman named Manori Devi on February 25, 2020.

This order holds importance as Yadav is the first person to be convicted and sent to jail in the northeast Delhi riots case. Communal clashes had broken out in the capital in February 2020, leaving at least 53 people dead and over 700 injured.

As per the court order, Devi had earlier received some compensation from the Delhi government for the loss. She had admittedly suffered a loss of about Rs 5 lakh due to the riotous incident.

The judge observed that it would be "totally unjustified" to direct Yadav to pay any further compensation to the victim or compensate Rs 83,000 expenditure incurred by the prosecution as he is unemployed, has no property or the paying capacity.

Sentencing the convict, the judge said, "It can not be gainsaid that the offence committed by the convict was a very serious one. However, no evidence had been led by the prosecution to prove that the unlawful assembly of which the convict was a member, had been formed in pursuance to some conspiracy." The court also considered his young age, clean past antecedents and the fact that he was a first-time offender while deciding on the quantum of the punishment.

"Admittedly, the convict is a first time offender and has clean past antecedents. There was no evidence that he had directly committed the incident of violence. The young age of the convict also deserves to be kept in consideration while deciding the quantum of sentence to be imposed upon him," ASJ Bhat noted.

Yadav was convicted for being a member of an unlawful assembly, rioting, arson, house trespassing, and robbery, offences which entail a jail term of up to ten years.

Special Public Prosecutor R C S Bhadoria had urged the court to impose maximum possible punishment upon the convict, saying that he was found guilty for being "part of an unlawful assembly which created large scale disturbances to defame India".

Yadav's lawyer, however, requested the judge for a lenient sentence since he had reformed himself and learnt his lesson by spending more than a year in jail.

Yadav was arrested on June 8, 2020. The court framed charges against him on August 3, 2021, to which he pleaded not guilty and claimed trial. PTI AAK SA

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