The Delhi Police on Thursday in the Supreme Court alleged that Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam, and others seeking bail in a UAPA case in connection with the 2020 Delhi riots were playing the “victim card” and seeking release on the ground of prolonged incarceration.
The police opposed bail to them and called Umar Khalid the chief conspirator behind the riots, and the one who had mentored Sharjeel Imam in planning the first phase of the violence. The riots were not spontaneous but part of a “deep-rooted, premeditated and pre-planned” conspiracy, it claimed.
“The evidence gathered from the period preceding the execution of the conspiracy, documented communications, coordinated plans, and alignments between actors, establishes a clear meeting of minds,” it said.
The material demonstrates not only knowledge but intention, revealing a deliberate design to bring the country into disrepute through targeted and strategic actions, it added. “It is submitted that it does not lie with the petitioners who for malafide and mischievous reasons, have delayed the commencement of trial to come and play the victim card and seek bail on the ground of prolonged incarceration.
“It is submitted that the conduct of the accused, apart from the irrefutable and ocular evidence available against them, disentitles them from seeking any relief of bail from this court,” the law enforcement agency said in an affidavit filed in the top court.
Rebutting the argument that the trial is not likely to be completed due to 900 witnesses, the police said the statement was not only premature but also a “red herring” manufactured to obtain bail. The police claimed that Khalid and Imam broke the “secular fabric” of JNU and created a communal WhatsApp group, ‘Muslim Students of JNU’, and also used students of Jamia Milia Islamia to instigate and mobilise them.
“They started instigating students at Jamia and Shaheen Bagh. They adopted a model of chakka-jaam in the name of protest and planned to convert it into disruptive chakka-jaam at appropriate time, disruption of supplies and services essential to normal life and attempting to dismember constituent provinces of India from the Union of India,” it said.
The motive behind the chakka-jaam was killing and injuring police and “non-Muslims” on a mass scale through a communal riot, they claimed. “Imam under the tutelage of Umar Khalid and other top conspirators conspired and engineered the first phase of the Delhi riots from December 13 to December 20, 2019. “Sharjeel Imam was instrumental in orchestrating the first phase of Delhi riots and the same could be established from Sharjeel Imam’s chat,” the police alleged.
They said that in January 2020, Khalid held a “secret meeting” in Seelampur with Gulfisha Fatima, Natasha Narwal, Devangana Kalita, and others, where he purportedly instructed them to induce local women of Seelampur to stockpile knives, bottles, acid, stones, chilli powder, and other dangerous articles to engineer a riot. Fatima was accused in the affidavit of acting as a key coordinator who helped turn peaceful sit-ins into violent demonstrations, the police said.
Meeran Haider, a member of the Jamia Coordination Committee, was alleged to have overseen multiple all-day protest sites, collected funds, and encouraged protesters to attack police and non-Muslims, they said.
The bail pleas of Khalid, Imam, and others are scheduled to come up for hearing before a bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and NV Anjaria on Friday.
