The Khargone trials: Acquittals, dead ends, failing evidence, and a prosecution that admits it is lumbering on

In practice, the Khargone trials: Acquittals, dead ends, failing evidence, and a prosecution that admits it is lumbering on Inspector supervising riot cases from 2022 admits: "We are facing difficulty as the accused names are generic, without any father's name or address".

Key points

• At least 16 houses and 29 shops were demolished in Khargone, MP, a day after the Ram Navami violence on April 10, 2022.
• Ten prosecution witnesses were examined during the trial before Third Extra Sessions Judge Rajkumar Yadav.
• After the clashes, the administration razed 16 houses in the affected localities, linking these to irregularities, and 65 cases were registered.
• While a Section 65B certificate was submitted by a woman named Vaishnavi for the photographs, the prosecution didn't call her as a witness.
• The second acquittal came in the attack on the family of Mehroon B in Khargone's Anand Nagar locality.

At least 16 houses and 29 shops were demolished in Khargone, MP, a day after the Ram Navami violence on April 10, 2022. (File/ Photo Enhanced using AI).

On July 27, a Madhya Pradesh Sessions Court acquitted 11 men accused in the 2022 Khargone Ram Navami violence that left more than two dozen individuals, including Khargone Superintendent of Police Siddharth Choudhary, injured, and one dead.

After the clashes, the administration razed 16 houses in the affected localities, linking these to irregularities, and 65 cases were registered. Then Chief Minister Shivraj Chouhan vowed, "There is no place for rioters on the soil of Madhya Pradesh. They will not be published. Strictest action will be taken against them."

Four years afterwards, the cases are collapsing one by one, or are stuck without headway, an investigation into court records by The Indian Express reveals.

For context, the only three riot cases to complete trial have all concluded in acquittal, including the one in which the order came on July 27. While 38 FIRs remain under investigation, with police yet to find roughly 85 accused in them, as per the Khargone police, four cases have been closed for want of evidence after police failed to trace the accused.

Twenty cases are at the stage of submission of evidence by the prosecution, with witnesses being examined.

In the cases leading to acquittal in Sessions Courts, three different judges pointed to the prosecution's failure to prove who committed the crimes, questioned how the accused came to be implicated, and observed that the forensic evidence itself contradicted claims of the apply of petrol bombs.

Hasina Fakhroo's house built under PMAY (Urban) was demolished. (Express photo by Anand Mohan J) Asked whether the administration will appeal against the acquittals or not, the prosecution department stated they will first review the judgment. Hostile witnesses, probe gaps. 1. June 13, 2025.

Meanwhile, the first case to see acquittals, on June 13, 2025, dealt with the burning down of an ancestral house belonging to Mahesh and Vijayalakshmi Mahajan in Khargone's Bhatwadi Mohalla. The prosecution's case was that Soaib, Wasim, Salim Khan (now deceased), and a juvenile had conspired and set alight the house using a petrol bomb, with the family putting its losses at Rs 90, 000.

Fourteen witnesses were examined. None admitted to seeing the accused start the fire. Mahesh Mahajan described learning of the blaze second-hand; Vijayalakshmi remarked she had been at her parents' home in Manawar at the time; other witnesses stated they had learned of the fire only after being informed riots had broken out.

Notably, the court of Sixth Extra Sessions Judge Kailash Prasad Marekam observed that "none of these witnesses made any statement before the court that the accused had participated in the riots or committed the incident".

Notably, the judgment's sharpest findings concerned the investigation itself. The investigating officer, Sub-Inspector Shankutala Dudwe, informed the court the accused had been arrested on the "basis of the available evidence". The judge asked what that evidence was, given that the FIR itself recorded the accused as unknown persons at the time it was lodged.

For context, the judgment continued that the investigating officer "has nowhere disclosed in her examination-in-chief how the number of accused increased from one unknown accused", and that "there is no evidence on record as to when, where, or how a criminal conspiracy was formed".

Notably, the electronic evidence fared no better. A pen drive remarked to contain footage of the arson was seized but never played before the court. The judge held that the prosecution could "derive no benefit from the pen drive", and continued that even if it had been played, it would "not have advanced the prosecution's case", since Mahesh. This person had produced the pen drive, produced no statement regarding it in his testimony and – after being declared hostile – denied identifying any accused from the footage.

No certificate under Section 65B of the Indian Evidence Act. It deals with the admissibility of electronic records as evidence, was produced to authenticate the recording, and the prosecution offered no evidence that the pen drive had ever been played on a police computer or that anyone had identified the accused in it.

In practice, a set of photographs fared similarly. While a Section 65B certificate was submitted by a woman named Vaishnavi for the photographs, the prosecution didn't call her as a witness. According to The judge additionally, crucial details regarding the device employed to take the photographs, such as a mobile phone number, were missing.

In practice, the forensic findings undercut the arson theory directly. Investigators sent three exhibits to the Sagar laboratory – a glass bottle, burnt wooden remnants from the house and a burnt iron gas stove. The FSL report, quoted in the judgment, discovered that "no residues of inflammable petroleum hydrocarbons (petrol/diesel/kerosene oil) were detected in any of the articles". 2. October 14, 2025.

For context, the second acquittal came in the attack on the family of Mehroon B in Khargone's Anand Nagar locality. The prosecution's case was that at around 11 pm on April 10, 2022, Mehroon and her family were asleep when stones were thrown at their house. Mehroon remarked she saw 10-11 attackers. One of the intruders, identified during the investigation as Kapil alias Golu Verma, allegedly lunged at her with a sword, leaving her with cuts. Her daughter Zubaida was allegedly struck by a stone.

Police treated the case as an attempt to murder, recovered two stones and a sword measuring roughly 2 ft 10 inches, and charged three men – Kapil Verma, Sonu Verma and Sachin Verma. The Arms Act was continued afterwards due to the sword.

Ten prosecution witnesses were examined during the trial before Third Extra Sessions Judge Rajkumar Yadav. All of them, including Mehroon, remarked they could not identify the accused.

For now, the Khargone trials: Acquittals, dead ends, failing evidence, and a prosecution that remains the part of the story worth watching, and further updates are likely as more details are confirmed.