NEW DELHI : A Delhi court on Tuesday ordered the registration of an FIR against Delhi Law Minister Kapil Mishra in the 2020 North-East Delhi riots case. The order was given by Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Vaibhav Chaurasia in response to a petition filed by Yamuna Vihar resident Mohammad Ilyas. After the latest decision, Rekha Gupta may have to resign from the government.

The court said that the material presented by the prosecution shows that Mishra was present in the concerned area and ‘all things were confirming this.’ Mohammad Ilyas had approached the court in December 2024 and sought an investigation into the role of Mishra and six others in the riots. 53 people were killed and more than 700 were injured in the 2020 riots. In the month of March this year, the Delhi Police had opposed the petition, saying that the role of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader had already been investigated and no serious allegations had surfaced. Kapil Mishra is now the Law and Justice Minister in the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Delhi government.
In his petition, Ilyas had accused Kapil Mishra, Mustafabad MLA and Deputy Speaker Mohan Singh Bisht, then DCP (North East), then SHO of Dayalpur police station and former BJP MLA Jagdish Pradhan for their alleged involvement in the riots. Ilyas had claimed that he saw Mishra and others blocking a road in Kardampuri and destroying the carts of street vendors on February 23, 2020. He also said that the former (North East) DCP and some other officers were standing with Mishra when he was threatening anti-CAA protesters. The petition also said that he saw the former SHO of Dayalpur and others vandalising mosques in north-east Delhi.
It is known that the Delhi Police has named several student leaders and activists, including Umar Khalid, Gulfisha Fatima and Sharjeel Imam, as co-conspirators in the riots. A 10-member fact-finding committee constituted by the Delhi Minority Commission had said that the violence in the Delhi riots was ‘planned and targeted’ and held Mishra responsible for it. The report said that ‘violence started in various areas almost immediately after Kapil Mishra’s speech in Maujpur on February 23, 2020. In his speech, he openly called for the forceful removal of protesters in Jafrabad, North-East Delhi.’
Mishra’s provocative speech
On February 23, a day before the riots broke out in Delhi, Kapil Mishra tweeted a video in which he can be seen addressing the crowd gathered in support of CAA near the Maujpur traffic signal. During this, North-East Delhi DCP Vedprakash Surya is also standing with him. Mishra is seen saying, ‘They (protesters) want to create tension in Delhi, so they have closed the roads. That is why they have created a riot-like situation here. We did not pelt any stones.
The DCP is standing in front of us and on your behalf, I want to tell him that we are leaving the area peacefully as long as US President Donald Trump is in India. If the roads are not cleared by then, we will not even listen to you (police). We will have to take to the streets.’

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