Delhi court rejects former JNU student Umar Khalid’s bail

Additional sessions judge Amitabh Rawat pronounced the order in the matter after deferring it thrice since March 14.

NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Thursday denied bail to former Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student Umar Khalid in the conspiracy case related to the 2020 northeast Delhi riots.

Umar Khalid. (HT PHOTO)

Additional sessions judge Amitabh Rawat pronounced the order in the matter after deferring it thrice. He reserved the order on March 3 and said he will pronounce it on March 14. The verdict was then posted for March 21. It could not be pronounced on that day either due to the last-minute filing of the special public prosecutor’s written submission. On Wednesday, the matter was again deferred for Thursday as the order was under correction.

Khalid has been booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act for being one of the alleged masterminds of the February 2020 riots, which left 53 people dead and over 400 injured.

Activist Khalid Saifi, JNU students Natasha Narwal and Devangana Kalita, Jamia Coordination Committee member Safoora Zargar, former councillor Tahir Hussain are among others who have also been booked under the stringent law.

Khalid’s lawyer, Trideep Pais, told the court that police have made “vague aspersions” against his client and that they were “pure imagination” without a shred of evidence. He submitted the prosecution failed to address the loopholes and contradictions he has pointed out with respect to the statements of a protected witness. The defence has called the witness unreliable. Pais argued the prosecution selectively chose people to suit its case.

The police opposed the bail and said the accused planned to embarrass the government before the international media. It submitted all the 25 sites for protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act that preceded the riots in Delhi were “carefully planned and picked” because of their proximity to mosques.