PTI
New Delh
The Delhi Police has named CPI (M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, Swaraj Abhiyan leader Yogendra Yadav, economist Jayati Ghosh, Delhi University professor and activist Apoorvanand, and documentary filmmaker Rahul Roy as co-conspirators in the February Delhi riots.
They have been accused of asking anti-CAA protesters to go to ¨any extreme¨, spreading discontent in the community by calling CAA/NRC anti-Muslim, and organise demonstrations to “malign the image of the Government of India”.
The names appeared in a supplementary charge sheet, a copy of which is with the PTI, filed by the police on the riots in North East District between February 23 and 26, which claimed 53 lives and left 581 injured, 97 of them having gunshot wounds. These eminent personalities have been made accused based on the confessions of three students — women’s collective Pinjra Tod members and JNU students Devangana Kalita and Natasha Narwal, and Gulfisha Fathima of Jamia Milia Islamia — in the Jafrabad violence, from where the riots spread to other parts of north-east Delhi.
All three are facing charges under various sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
In the charge sheet, which was made public just two days before the commencement of the Monsoon Session of Parliament, the Delhi Police has claimed that Kalita and Narwal admitted to not just their complicity in the riots but also named Ghosh, Apoorvanand and Roy as their mentors, who allegedly asked them to carry out the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act and go to “any extreme”.