On Tuesday, the Karkardooma court in Delhi rejected the bail application of Umar Khalid, a former student leader from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). Khalid has been in jail since September 2020 under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) for his alleged involvement in a conspiracy related to the 2020 Delhi riots.
Khalid sought regular bail, arguing that there had been delays in his case and citing parity with other accused who have been granted bail. However, the Delhi police’s special public prosecutor opposed the bail plea, calling it “frivolous and baseless.”
On May 13, Special Judge Sameer Bajpai had reserved the decision on Khalid’s bail application before announcing the rejection.
Khalid’s lawyer argued that there were no terror allegations against him in the charge sheet filed by the Delhi police. Instead, his name was merely repeated in the document, which his lawyer claimed did not substantiate the charges. The lawyer also alleged that Khalid was being targeted by a vicious media trial.
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The Delhi police accused Khalid of planning protests at 23 different locations in 2020, which they claim led to the riots. Responding to the allegations, Khalid’s lawyer stated that sharing messages or links should not be considered a criminal or terror act. The Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) countered this by alleging that Khalid was sharing links to amplify his narrative as part of a conspiracy.
Earlier, Khalid had withdrawn his bail plea from the Supreme Court in February and moved it to the local court instead. His lawyer pointed out that other activists, such as Natasha Narwal, Devangana Kalita, and Asif Iqbal Tanha, had been granted bail by the Delhi High Court for similar offenses. Despite this, the SPP argued that Khalid’s case was different and that he was trying to influence his bail hearings through social media.
The SPP also mentioned that several people, including activists and journalists like Teesta Seetalvad, Aakar Patel, Kaushik Raj, Swati Chaturvedi, and Arju Ahmed, had taken to social media platform X (formerly Twitter) to influence Khalid’s bail hearing. He dismissed the claim that Khalid was a victim of a media trial, accusing Khalid of manipulating the media instead.
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