New Delhi: In his latest appearance before a sessions court judge, former JNU student Umar Khalid, who has been arrested under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) for allegedly being one of the co-conspirators of the Delhi communal riots in February, categorically told the judge that he has not signed any disclosure statement that the Delhi police may have prepared to include in the chargesheet.
While Khalid was first arrested in the Delhi police’s FIR 59/20202, he was arrested again in a separate case (FIR 101 of the Khajuri Khas police station) under charges of rioting, possession of arms, trespassing, mischief, and damage to public property earlier this month. He has been sent to custody till October 22 in Tihar after he was arrested first on September 13.
His counsel Trideep Pais told The Wire, “Multiple false disclosure statements have been leaked by the Delhi police earlier. That has also led to a completely erroneous narrative. Umar was in police custody for 10 days in FIR 59 (the case related to conspiracy and UAPA charges). At the end of that police custody, Amitabh Rawat, the sessions judge, put it in his order that he has not made any statement.”
“Umar appeared himself and told the judge that he neither made a statement nor signed anything,” Pais said. He added that Khalid only requested the judge to permit him to read a book and meet his parents while in custody.
Khalid spent 10 days in custody after he was arrested. However, as it his custody about to end, the Delhi police arrested him again in a separate case, thereby extending his custody. His friend Banojyotsna Lahiri told The Wire that he was barely interrogated in the days he spent in Tihar jail.
However, despite that, he was whisked away to the Sunlight Colony police station, which is also the office of the special task force, crime branch, in the Khajuri Khas violence case. He was then sent to police custody for three days by a magistrate in Tihar jail. “There too, he told the magistrate that he didn’t sign a statement nor did he make any disclosure,” Pais said.
Also Read: Why Is the Modi Government Targeting Umar Khalid Now?
Khalid’s statement assumes significance in the light of criticism that the Delhi police has been facing over its probe into the Delhi riots. Opposition political parties and civil society members have alleged that the probe has become a deliberate attempt on the part of the police to intimidate, arrest, or question multiple critics of the Narendra Modi government by foisting false charges.
The probe, indeed, has moved in a direction that has seen the implication of a number of anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protestors, who had been staging peaceful sit-ins for over two months. Whereas action has not been taken against BJP leaders like Kapil Mishra, Anurag Thakur, and Parvesh Verma, who are accused of threatening or provoking violence against the protestors. This selective nature of the probe has seen a large section of the civil society accuse the Delhi police probe into the riots of becoming a “witch hunt” of the critics of the Modi government