Delhi riots convict Dinesh Yadav gets 5 years in jail

He is the first person to be convicted in the case

A Delhi court on Thursday sentenced a man to jail for five years in the first conviction in a case related to riots in Delhi in early 2020, which claimed lives of more than 50 people, and left hundred others injured.

The riots, the worst such violence in the capital in decades, followed months of protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019, related to grant of citizenship to minorities in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

Additional Sessions Judge Virender Bhat of the Karkardooma courts, sentenced convict Dinesh Yadav to five years in jail, along with Rs 12,000 fine, for his role in the 2020 riots in Delhi.

The court had earlier held Yadav guilty, saying he was part of a mob of 150 to 200 rioters who vandalised and set on fire the house of a 73-year-old woman, Manori Devi.

It, however, noted the convict is a first time offender and has clean past antecedents. The convict has been held guilty only by virtue of section 149 IPC and there was no evidence that he had directly committed the incident of violence in which the house of victim Manori Devi had been vandalised and burnt.

Dinesh will be the first person to be convicted and sentenced to five years in jail.

He was convicted on December 12, 2021 under Sections 143 (Unlawful assembly), 147 (Rioting), 148 (Rioting armed with deadly weapon), 457 (House trespass), 392 (Robbery), 436 (Mischief by fire or explosive substance with intent to destroy house, etc) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

The court said that the fine imposed on the convict would be paid to the victim as compensation. It also noted that the victim who claimed to have suffered a loss of Rs 4.50 lakh-5 lakh, did not produce any documentary evidence for it. She also received a compensation of Rs 50,000 from Delhi government.

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