Victim of 2020 North-East Delhi riots says, she never saw the accused burning her house
Jan 20, 2022
By Ravi Bhushan Dwivedi
New Delhi [India], January 20 : Reacting to Dinesh Yadav's sentencing in the Delhi Riots 2020 case by a Delhi court, the elderly woman, named Manori, whose house was burnt down during the riots by a mob which included him, has said that she never saw the accused burning her house.
"I never saw him burning the house. I have not seen his face to date. I said the same in front of the police and the judge. The court is not my cup of tea and I can not even save him," said Manori to ANI.
Manori also said that during the riots, things were stolen from their house.
"The quarrelling started a day before the house was burnt, due to which all the family members had confined themselves to the house. On the next day, people started knocking at our doors aggressively. The entire family went to the roof. They all ran away and stayed with some close people for the next four days. My daughter-in-law has still not left the bed where she was lying when the rioters broke inside the house, she is in shock. On the fourth day, police called us to the station and we got to know that our house was burnt down and things were stolen. They even took away the milk, ghee, pickle etc," she said.
Manori Begum said that I'm not interested to live here anymore. "In future, if we find any buyer, I'll sell my house and move away somewhere else," said Manori Begum adding that after riots, the peace and harmony of the area was disturbed.
On the other hand, the family members of Yadav have said that he has been implicated because of his poor background, adding that he is innocent.
"He is being implicated because he is poor. Police harassed my father, he is no more. Law and Police belong to the government, who will listen to us poor people? We have to go to court often and we are labourers. He is innocent, he had no previous criminal report, but yet they filed such a massive charge-sheet against him. Police freed people who had money but they took my brother away since he is poor," said Harish, Dinesh's brother to ANI. 
Mudha, Dinesh's mother said, "I have not had any communication with him for a long time. He was arrested in June 2020 and we have not heard from him. I am not allowed to meet him in prison either. The police do not allow me to talk to him. He has not done anything. We will go to High Court and Supreme Court for justice."
The neighbour of the family, Sonu said to ANI, "One person in a mob cannot be held guilty. I have seen the video of the house being burnt down. Even that victim says that she does not know who burnt her house. He was implicated using a video that was from 2 days after the house was burnt down. This is a political issue. Big people are the ones behind the riots, why would small, poor people kill others?."
Another woman named Krishna, whose son Sandeep is also in prison in connection with the riots, says that she herself is clueless that how could her son be a part of the riots.
"Our son was not even in the video. The court is not my cup of tea either, we do not even have an understanding of the law. My husband is no more too," she added.
In February 2020, violence took place in the northeast area of Delhi between groups supporting and opposing the Citizenship Amendment Act.
