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New Delhi, Oct 30 (IANS) In a detailed counter affidavit filed before the Supreme Court opposing the bail plea of Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam, Delhi Police on Thursday said the two student activists had hatched the conspiracy behind the 2020 Delhi riots and carefully coordinated the incident.
Citing chats, witness statements and call records related to his activities since December 2019, the affidavit describes Umar Khalid as one of the “key conspirators” and a “mentor” to others, including Sharjeel Imam, for organizing students, building protest networks and allegedly selecting violent protest sites.
According to the counter document, this conspiracy was pre-planned to be carried out at a time when US President Donald Trump was about to visit India on an official visit.
“This was done to attract ‘International Media’ attention and make the CAA issue a global issue by portraying it as a genocide of the Muslim community in India. The CAA issue was carefully chosen so as to act as a ‘radicalisation catalyst’ disguised in the name of ‘peaceful protest’,” the affidavit said.
It quoted another witness who said, “I now believe that it was the plan of Umar Khalid and his associates to commit riots at Maujpur, Babarpur Metro Station on February 23,” directly attributing the Maujpur and Babarpur violence to the alleged planning of Khalid and his associates.
It further cited statements of several protected witnesses, including those identifying Khalid’s role in coordination with the Delhi Protest Support Group (DPSG) and the Jamia Coordination Committee (JCC).
A witness statement said, “Umar Khalid and Nadeem Khan came to the AAJMI office (Jamia Alumni Association)…Umar asked Saiful Islam and Asif Iqbal Tanha to form the Jamia Coordination Committee. Nadeem Khan then said that the JCC would lead the protests and ‘chakka jam’ in Delhi.”
The affidavit described Sharjeel Imam as “a top conspirator under the patronage of Umar Khalid” and said he had planned the first phase of the Delhi riots between December 13 and December 20, 2019.
It pointed to Imam’s WhatsApp chat in the group “Core Members MSJ” on December 7, 2019, where he allegedly wrote, “Next week we will have to do something (We have to do something next week)”, and messages to co-accused Arshad Warsi that he was planning a “mass mobilization”.
The affidavit said that in a speech given at Jamia Millia Islamia on December 13, 2019, Sharjeel Imam had reportedly described the earlier violence as “just a spark” and urged the mob to escalate it through “chakka jam” tactics across Delhi.
It also reportedly repeated the content of a pamphlet distributed that day, which called on Muslims to “disrupt Delhi to attract international attention”.
Delhi Police claimed that Sharjeel Imam’s “Chakka Jam” model got its first success in Shaheen Bagh in south-east Delhi.
“Sharjeel Imam with the help of radical student organization “Jamia students” successfully created a 24×7 protest site at Shaheen Bagh and blocked road number 13,” the affidavit said.
On January 13, 2020, Imam reportedly met Nadeem Khan, a “close associate of top conspirator Umar Khalid”, to discuss new protest sites, as confirmed by WhatsApp chats and call detail records.
The affidavit described the two student activists as working together – Imam led the first phase of violence in December 2019, and Khalid oversaw the planning of the February 2020 riots.
It said that by February, “there was not even an iota of doubt that (Sharjeel Imam) was part of a larger conspiracy long hatched to carry out armed riots in Delhi, resulting in arson, vandalism, mass destruction and killings at the time of President Donald Trump’s visit.”
Summarizing the scale of damage, Delhi Police recorded 53 deaths, 530 injuries, including 106 police officers, and loss of property worth over Rs 21 crore.
The affidavit said the actions of Khalid and Imam “were not spontaneous reactions but were deliberate, reflecting the broader objective of destabilizing the country and establishing a global narrative of ethnic cleansing or genocide of the Muslim community under the proposed Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA)”.
Both Khalid and Imam, along with other accused, are incarcerated under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).
His petitions for bail are pending in the Supreme Court.
The bench of Justices Arvind Kumar and NV Anjaria is scheduled to hear the matter on October 31.
–IANS
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