By Vedant Chaudhury
Earlier this month, Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam, the prime accused in orchestrating the Delhi Riots of 2020 were denied bail by the Hon’ble Delhi High Court. In its elaborate common judgment the Delhi High Court decided on the bail application of a number of other student leaders co-accused in the Delhi Riots. Bail to the accused was denied primarily since in the view of the court, from the chargesheet it was apparent that the accused had participated in exciting communal tensions, which finally culminated in communal violence. This piece breaks down the context of the word “communal” and argues that raising awareness amongst Muslims against the CAA should not be regarded as an act intended to spread communal tensions.
While recording its reasons for denying bail the court has referred to section 43D(5) of the Unlawful Activies Prevention Act, 1967 (UAPA); which provides that any person accused of an offence under the UAPA would be denied bail where the chargesheet shows a prima facie case against the accused. In simpler words, if the chargesheet of filed by the prosecution makes out a case against the accused, and to the Court it appears apparent that the accused has committed an offence, then bail shall not be granted.
The case made out against both Imam and Khalid is that they were involved in the creation of “communal groups” on WhatsApp, and engaged in mobilizing of Muslims across the country. The prosecution has sought to establish before the court a chain of events showing that Khalid and Imam were actively involved in reaching out to student communities, specifically student bodies at universities.
The prosecution has pointed out that Imam had visited the Jamia Milia Islamia University and the Aligarh Muslim University, both minority institutions for Muslims to mobilize the support of Muslim students, thus clearly establish communal motive on part of the accused. Further, the accused distributed pamphlets and gave speeches in Muslim majority localities across Delhi. Accused also visited cities with Muslim majority population where the gave speeches to mobilize Muslims.
The prosecution also alleges that the accused were instrumental in creating a number of communal groups, for example on 04.12.2019, a group by the name “Muslim Students of Jamia” was created by the accused, a similar WhatsApp group was created by the name “Muslim Students of JNU_1”, to mobilize Muslim students to protest. The prosecution presents this evidence to establish that the present case is one with a strong “communal” undertone, which the court cannot fail to consider.
All the evidence alleged above is yet to be established by the prosecution before the Trial Court. However even if all the evidence of the prosecution is accepted, their case suffers from two fatal flaws.
The Delhi Riots were a culmination of the peaceful protests that had been ongoing in Delhi since the passing of the Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2019 by the Parliament. The Bill, (now an Act) in effected granted accelerated citizenship to Hindu, Sikhs, Christians, Parsis, Jains and Buddhists who had entered India from Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Bangladesh on or before 31 December, 2014.
The act, although apparently benign, was fundamentally discriminatory towards Muslims. Thus evidently, the act had a disproportionate impact on Muslims, instantly relegating them to the position of a “second-class citizen”. Since Muslims had been singularly impacted by the law, it was only logical to expect that Muslims would be the most proactive to protest against the same. In this context, the accused making specific groups for Muslims students to participate in protests, or the accused reaching out to Muslim population across India must not be seen as an act to divide the country on the lines of religion, but rather as an act to consolidate raise awareness of an unjust law within that segment of society that would be most impacted by it.
The Delhi Riots took place in 2020, the accused in the case have been in detention for nearly five years, without any hopes of being released soon.
The riots will remain etched as one of the most cruel and violent days in the history of independent India. It is difficult to erase the memories of the riot from the minds of people who watched the violence transpire. In such an event, it becomes easy to direct public anguish on a few scapegoats, and parade them as an emblem of the riots, as their mastermind, or orchestrators. There can be no denying that prima facie it appears that the accused called for peaceful protest against a law, but it would be unfair to blame the accused for violence that ensued as a consequence of many other factors.
