Arguing against the imposed sedition case on December 6, Umar Khalid, a former student activist of JNU told Delhi High Court that there was no basis for making him accused in the Delhi violence conspiracy. During the court session, Umar pointed out how he was trapped under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (UAPA) in 2020 and argued that no criminal cases were filed against other partakers of those alleged conspiracy meetings who were found busy on their phones post the violence hullabaloo.
Advocate Trideep Pais raised questions on the imprisonment of Umar Khalid and said that he was not connected to violence or any fund-raising activities to conduct demonstrations.
“There was a meeting; bulk of the meeting is not an accused. How am I an accused? There were two from the meeting who are accused. One Sharjeel Imam and myself. How are we accused when others are not? What is the basis of making this person or that person an accused is not even known?” Umar asked the HC.
Underlining the particular polarized behaviour of authorities towards Muslim activists, Umar’s statements elucidated that several members of civil society were part of those gatherings and protests, but nobody targeted them. From leader Yogendra Yadav to filmmaker Rahul Roy, different people who attended those meetings were not marked as accused of inciting revolt and were not arrested under UAPA. Saba Diwan and four others also used their phones just after the violence spread-up but the authorities did not book them.
Presenting the arguments before a bench of Justice Navin Chawla and Shalinder Kaur, Trideep said “there are other people in that meeting…with regard to the meeting there are witness statements, there were other people in the meeting. For example, in the Jangpura meeting, there is one Mr Yogendra Yadav. He is not an accused. There is Mr. Purushottam Sharma. He is not accused.”
No Proofs Found Against Umar
Umar Khalid who has spent more than 4 years in Tihar jail without a bail is among those 18 people who were held accused after violence flared up in Delhi during February 2020.
On September 13, 2020 he was arrested for allegedly being the “mastermind” of riots that gobbled more than 53 innocent lives. Those killed were mostly Muslims and were protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC).
However, the investigation of Umar Khalid’s case revealed that he was not involved in physical violence or inflammatory speeches. No weapons or banned literature were found with him. There were only a few feeble testimonies of some witnesses who accused Umar of using provocative language to fuel tension among protestors.
As several times Umar’s bail plea was denied or avoided, advocate Pais presented the instances of some co-accused including Asif Iqbal Tanha, Devangana Kalita and Ishrat Jahan who had been granted bail by the HC. While Umar justified that he was absent when the violence took place and he only advocated “Gandhian principles” to organize “peaceful protests”. He elaborated that his speech at Amravati was tarnished and misinterpreted by the opponents, but in reality it was based on the concept of non-violence.
“It does not call for violence. I was thousands of miles away from Delhi. There is no reaction by the crowd. It is a speech invoking Gandhian principles of non-violence and saying that we should protest against this law,” he said.
Acoording to Bar and Bench Umar said, “In the alleged meeting of criminal conspiracy, the members were not even at the same place. They are randomly reading CDRs and comparing the location of the accused and saying ‘okay these people are there’. In another meeting, there are more people who are not even accused.”
The HC also heard the case of leader Meeran Haider on the same day who was also seeking a bail on the grounds of long incarceration. By the same token, no weapons or hints of unlawful involvement in riots were found against him.
Haider’s advocate said that peaceful protests were deciphered as riots and there were no real reasons behind the gruesome charges.
