Delhi HC denies bail to Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam in riots conspiracy case

The Delhi high court has also denied bail to other accused in the case, including Gulfisha Fatima, Khalid Saifi, Athar Khan, Mohd Saleem, Shifa ur Rehman, Meeran Haider and Shadaab Ahmed

The Delhi high court on Tuesday denied bail to student activists Sharjeel Imam and Umar Khalid, seeking bail in connection with the Delhi riots larger conspiracy case.

Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam. (File Photos)

A bench of justices Navin Chawla and Shalinder Kaur also denied bail to seven other accused, including student activist Gulfisha Fatima, United Against Hate (UAH) founder Khalid Saifi, Athar Khan, Mohd Saleem, Shifa ur Rehman, Meeran Haider and Shadaab Ahmed.

“All the appeals are dismissed,” the court said while pronouncing the verdict.

A coordinate bench of the Delhi high court comprising justices Subramonium Prasad and Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar also denied bail to another co-accused— Tasleem Ahmad in the same case.

Northeast Delhi erupted in violence on February 23, 2020, following clashes between Hindus and Muslims over the then-proposed Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) that left 53 dead and hundreds injured.

The accused, including jailed activist Sharjeel Imam, Gulfisha Fatima, former Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student leader Umar Khalid, and Khalid Saifi, have been booked under the stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), and had approached the high court after being denied bail by a lower court.

They argued that they had already spent more than four years in custody and that the trial’s slow pace made prolonged incarceration unjustifiable. They also asserted that they are entitled to be released on bail on the grounds of parity with their co-accused, Natasha Narwal, Devangana Kalita, and Asif Iqbal Tanha, who were granted bail by the high court in 2021.

The Delhi Police, represented by solicitor general Tushar Mehta along with special public prosecutor Amit Prasad, had opposed the bail, saying that the 2020 riots in northeast Delhi were not “spontaneous” but a “well planned”, “well orchestrated”, “well thought of conspiracy”, carried out on a particular date, time and place to achieve the sinister goal of dividing the country on religious lines and embarrassing India globally.

The law officer had urged the court to not treat the case as a case of “mere riots” but as one where the accused had conspired with an intention to cause communal divide, destabilise India’s unity, law and order and prolonged incarceration could not be a ground for release of bail, in a case where the accused intended to cause violence in the Capital and break the country into two parts.

The high court had reserved verdict on the bail petitions of the nine accused on July 9.