Khatauli BJP MLA acquitted in 2013 Muzaffarnagar riot case

Muzaffarnagar: A BJP MLA facing trial for his alleged role in the 2013 Muzaffarnagar communal riots case was on Friday acquitted by a special court here for the lack of evidence.

Special Judge Gopal Upadhyay, heading a court for the trial of lawmakers, acquitted Khatauli MLA Vikram Saini, along with 11 others, 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.