Delhi: A Delhi court on Thursday reserved its order on the bail plea of former JNU student Umar Khalid in a case of a larger conspiracy in connection with Delhi riots during February 2020. Additional Sessions Judge Amitabh Rawat said that the order on the bail plea of Khalid would be pronounced on March 14.
During the argument, Khalid's lawyer Tridip Pais told the court that the prosecution lacked the evidence to prove a case against his client. The defense counsel argued that the charge sheet has no basis or facts, it is just a work of fiction. "There are contradictions in the statements of witnesses. There are contradictions between what witnesses say before police and what they say before magistrate while recording their statements," the counsel said.
Advocate Pais argued that police used words like diabolical, insidious for the speech delivered at Amaravati by Umar Khalid. He argued that the speech was about Gandhi, harmony, and Constitution and not a crime.
Khalid, along with several others, has been booked under the anti-terror law — Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) — in the case for being the “masterminds” of the February 2020 riots, which had left 53 people dead and over 700 injured. The violence had erupted during the protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), 2019, and the National Register of Citizens (NRC).
Besides Khalid, activist Khalid Saifi, JNU students Natasha Narwal and Devangana Kalita, Jamia Coordination Committee members Safoora Zargar, former AAP councilor Tahir Hussain and several others have also been booked under the stringent law in the case.
(With agency inputs)
Read: Delhi Violence Case: Police alleges terror funding and use of black money
