Verdict on Umar’s bail deferred again

Additional sessions judge Amitabh Rawat said since the order is under correction, it will be pronounced Thursday at 12pm (noon).

Delhi court on Wednesday deferred for the third time the passing of an order on the bail plea of former Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student Umar Khalid in the main conspiracy case related to the 2020 north-east Delhi riots and posted the matter to Thursday (March 24).

File photo of Umar Khalid (HT Photo)

Additional sessions judge Amitabh Rawat said since the order is under correction, it will be pronounced Thursday at 12pm (noon).

The court had reserved the order on March 3 and said it will pronounce it on March 14, but that did not happen. The judge then posted the matter to March 21, but the order could not be pronounced on that day either due to the last minute filing of a written submission by the special public prosecutor.

Khalid, along with several others, has been booked under the anti-terror law, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), in the case for being the alleged masterminds of the February 2020 riots. Besides Khalid, activist Khalid Saifi, JNU students Natasha Narwal and Devangana Kalita, Jamia coordination committee member Safoora Zargar, former AAP councillor Tahir Hussain and several others have also been booked in the case.

Appearing for Khalid, his counsel Trideep Pais had told the court that the police have made vague aspersions against him in their charge-sheet. He argued that the allegations against Khalid were the “pure imagination” of the prosecution.

The police, on the other hand, opposed the bail plea and said the accused had planned to embarrass the government before the international media.

The counsel had also submitted that all the 25 protest sites against the amended citizenship law in Delhi were “carefully planned and picked” because of their proximity to local mosques and were “purposefully given secular names” to prove the legitimacy of the protests.