The Special Cell of Delhi Police, in its chargesheet, has kept former Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student Umar Khalid at the centre of the riots conspiracy and claimed that the plot was hatched by the activist “and his associates”.
In a pre-recorded video made before his arrest, Mr. Khalid said the police were attributing false statements to him. “They had been trying to arrest me for the last few months and attributing false statements to me,” he said in the video.
While seeking prosecution sanction under sedition and other sections, the police stated as ‘brief facts’: “Communal riots incidents of February 23-25 2020 were pre-planned and were hatched by Umar Khalid, a student of JNU and his associates, all linked with different – 2 groups [sic]”.
The police also attached the transcript of Mr. Khalid’s alleged speech, in court documents titled Transcription of Speech of Umar Khalid shown on Youtube by Republic World allegedly on 17 Feb 2020 at Amrawati, Maharashtra. In it, Mr. Khalid is quoted as saying that US President Donald Trump is coming to India on February 24 and “he will be informed that the government of India is dividing its people”.
In his pre-recorded video, Mr. Khalid had said that just a few seconds of his 17-minute speech in Amravati has been extracted and shared online. “I did not even mention the words: riots and violence. In fact, I was talking about satyagraha and ahimsa. Now, they are using false narrative against me in the media and forcing people to give false testimonies against me. They are trying to put everyone who criticises the government behind bars,” he said.
The police have claimed that Mr. Khalid gave provocative speeches at various places and instigated people to come out on the roads so that during Mr. Trump’s visit, “propaganda of minorities in India are being persecuted [sic]” gained international coverage.
The documents further claimed that JNU student Sharjeel Imam created a WhatsApp group Muslim Students of JNU and three other WhatsApp groups: Students of Jamia, Delhi Protest Support Group and Hum Bharat Ke Log to allegedly mobilise people against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, and the National Register of Citizens.
Protest sites
The police claimed that initially two protest sites were created, which later expanded to 23 venues across the city. “The location of these protest sites were deliberately chosen in mix population areas, so that at an appropriate time, the sites could be turned into chakka jams (road blockades) and then into riots. These sites are also located at places, where there is history of past riots,” the documents state.
The police further claimed that “it has come on record” that “secret offices were set up at most of the protests sites, where mobilisation of people, preparation, strategy, schemes, stock of aforesaid materials, speeches and slogans, were decided in a confidential and secret manner” and “fake vouchers were manufactured/forged” for funds.
The police claimed that according to the “sinister and nefarious conspiracy”, the “façade of civil disobedience” was to be maintained “to buckle the government to agree to the illegitimate demands of the accused persons”.
The motive, the police further claimed, was to go to “any extent possible”, including “instigation of riots” to “execute a secessionist movement in the country by propagating an armed rebellion against the lawfully constituted government of the day”. “The main target was to uproot the government,” the document read.