Delhi Police gets 10-day custody of Umar Khalid in Delhi riots case; actors, academicians, activists express solidarity

According to an HT report, Special public prosecutor Amit Prasad told the additional sessions judge Amitabh Rawat while seeking Khalid’s custody that he had to be confronted with a huge number of documentary evidence.

The Delhi Police special cell, which made the arrest, said Khalid was arrested as it was investigating a “larger conspiracy angle” behind the bloody riots that continued from February 23 to 26, claiming 53 lives and leaving nearly 400 injured.

Khalid has denied the charges, calling the investigation a conspiracy.

On Saturday Umar Khalid was summoned by Delhi Police and he was asked to join the investigation on Sunday at the Special Cell office in Lodhi Colony, sources said.

Earlier on July 31, Khalid had been questioned by the Delhi Police when his phone was seized, sources added.

Umar Khalid arrived at the Special Cell office on Sunday around 1 pm and following a marathon interrogation, he was arrested under UAPA around 11 pm.

Earlier on March 6, an FIR was registered against Khalid for his alleged role in the Northeast Delhi violence.

“The fight against draconian CAA and UAPA will go on despite all these horrid measures of intimidation. Right now, our first priority is that #UmarKhalid should be given maximum security and the Delhi Police must ensure his safety by all means possible," United Against Hate, an activist group, whose member is Umar Khalid, said in a statement.

The special cell told a court last month that Khalid and the other accused -- former AAP councillor Tahir Hussain and activist Khalid Saifi -- had plotted a conspiracy to orchestrate the riots, ahead of the visit of US President Donald Trump in February, said the HT report.

The report said that the police have stated in at least four charge sheets that Khalid had met jailed and suspended Aam Aadmi Party’s councillor Hussain and Saifi on January 8 at the Shaheen Bagh sit-in protest site to allegedly hatch the conspiracy.

Police also linked Khalid's speeches to the riots.

The HT report said Khalid's lawyer, Trideep Pais, demanded police's clarification on where he (Khalid) gave the speeches and produce the proof that his client exhorted people to come and protest, adding that Khalid is against the CAA and he is not ashamed of it.

 Meanwhile, Swaraj India chief Yogendra Yadav tweeted against Khalid’s arrest, calling him a “thinking idealist” who has always opposed violence and communalism in any form.

Apart from Tahir Hussain, Jamia student Meeran Haider, Jamia Coordination Committee’s media coordinator Safoora Zargar, and Pinjra Tod activists Natasha Narwal and Devangana Kalita, have been earlier arrested under the Unlawful Activity Prevention Act (UAPA), said media reports.

Jawaharlal Nehru University students Devangana Kalita and Natasha Narwal and Jamia Millia Islamia University student Gulfisha Fathima have been also named accused in Delhi's Jaffrabad violence, which gradually engulfed the other parts of north-east Delhi in February.

The riots spread after clashes between the CAA protesters and its supporters.

Media reports said last month a charge sheet was filed in connection with the riots which has a statement by one of the accused claiming that Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, Delhi University professor Apoorvanand, former lawmaker Chaudhary Mateen and advocate Mahmood Pracha instigated anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) protestors.

Lawyer and activist Prashant Bhushan slamming Khalid’s arrest said Delhi Police’s investigation into the riots “leaves no doubt at all about the malafide nature”.

Condemning the arrest, Umar Khalid’s father, Sayed Qasim Rasool Ilyas, who is the national president of Welfare Party of India and a member of the Executive Committee of  All India Muslim Personal Law Board, said his son’s “implication in the Delhi riots is totally fabricated and a false narrative created by Delhi Police to misguide the nation and stifle dissent”.

Slamming the arrest, activist Harsh Mandar Khalid called Khalid a youth a country should be proud of. “...He’s a youth a country should be proud of - idealistic, progressive, brave. We spoke together in anti-CAA protests: he spoke always of non-violence & Gandhi. Today he’s arrested under draconian UAPA on trumped up charges of conspiracy. Cry out, my country,” he tweeted.

A group of academics and activists issued a statement in Khalid’s support and termed his arrest by Delhi Police a “witch-hunt”, the HT report cited said.

“As citizens deeply committed to Constitutional values, we condemn the arrest of Umar Khalid who has been subjected to a malicious investigation targeting peaceful anti-CAA protestors. He has been booked under several charges including UAPA, sedition and conspiracy for murder. With deep anguish, we have no doubt in saying that this investigation is not about the violence in February 2020 in the national capital, but on the completely peaceful and democratic protests across the country against the unconstitutional CAA,” the statement said.

“It is very significant that of the 20 arrested, 19 are under the age of 31. Of which 17 have been charged under the draconian UAPA and have been imprisoned on charges of a conspiracy for the Delhi violence whereas those who actually instigated and participated in the violence have not been touched. Of the ones incarcerated, five are women, except for one all are also students,” the statement added.

The signatories to the statement include Ravi Kiran Jain and V Suresh of the Peoples Union for Civil Liberties; lawyers Mihir Desai and ND Pancholi; academics Satish Deshpande, Mary John, Apoorvanand, Nandini Sundar and Shuddhabrata Sengupta; and rights activists Aakar Patel, Mander, Farah Naqvi and Biraj Patnaik, te report added.

Actor and activist Swara Bhaskar also demanded Khalid's release and scrapping of UAPA in tweets.