Delhi high court rejects ex-JNU student leader Umar Khalid’s bail plea

Khalid was arrested in September 2020 and booked under the stringent anti-terror law Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act or UAPA

The Delhi high court on Tuesday rejected former Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student leader Umar Khalid’s bail plea in a case related to the alleged conspiracy behind the February 2020 riots in the city.

Former JNU student Umar Khalid. (PTI)

Khalid was arrested in September 2020 and booked under the stringent anti-terror law Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act or UAPA and the Indian Penal Code. The Delhi Police accused him of being one of the “masterminds” behind the riots on the basis of his speech in Maharashtra’s Amravati.

In April, Khalid moved the high court against a trial court’s rejection of his bail plea a month earlier. He argued he had nothing to do with the violence in northeast Delhi and had no conspiratorial connect with the other accused in the case.

A bench of justices Siddharth Mridul and Rajnish Bhatnagar, which reserved its order on Khalid’s bail plea on September 9, rejected it saying they did not find any merits in it.

Senior advocate Trideep Pais, who appeared for Khalid, argued his client’s speech in Amravati had a categorical call for non-violence and also did not lead to violence anywhere.

He said the only overt act attributed to Khalid is the speech. “That was a public event. That did not lead to violence anywhere,” Pais told the court.

The Delhi Police opposed the bail plea saying Khalid’s speeches were to create a sense of fear among Muslims.