Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam denied bail by HC in Delhi riots ‘conspiracy’ case

The court also rejected the bail petitions filed by seven other accused, including activist Gulfisha Fatima, Khalid Saifi, Meeran Haider and others.

The Delhi high court on Tuesday denied bail to activists Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam and others accused in the “larger conspiracy” case related to the 2020 riots in Delhi.

Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam have been in jail for many years now, barring interim bail for a few days in between. (HT File)

The court also rejected the bail petitions filed by seven other accused: 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,” a bench of Justices Navin Chawla and Shalinder Kaur said while pronouncing the verdict. The high court had reserved its verdict on the bail petitions on July 9.

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

What's the case against Umar Khalid, Gulfisha Fatima, Sharjeel Imam and others?

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 in the case had approached the high court after they were denied bail by a lower court.

They had 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.

Meanwhile, 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.