Umar Khalid statement among additional evidence submitted by NIA to court

In the evidence submitted to the court, the NIA has included the statement of Khalid, recorded in the office of the deputy superintendent of Tihar jail in New Delhi, where he is lodged in connection with the Delhi riots case.

In his statement, Khalid said that he was invited to the Elgaar Parishad held in Pune on December 31, 2017, by retired Justice B G Kolse Patil. He told the NIA that he was not given any script of the speech to be delivered.
“Before delivering my speech at any place, I take local knowledge from any known person. No one had given me any script of speech for Elgaar Parishad meeting,” he said in the statement.

The statement added that he had stayed at Justice Kolse-Patil’s home during his visit and many persons related to the event were also present there. It further said that while he was there, he came to know that “BJP and RSS persons attacked those who came to visit Bhima Koregaon”. Khalid has not been named an accused in the case.

The Pune Police had filed an FIR in connection with the Elgaar Parishad following a complaint that claimed that provocative speeches were made by some speakers, including Khalid, at the event. The next day, those on their way to the Bhima Koregaon memorial faced violence. A separate FIR was lodged against members of two Hindutva groups for the violence.

The Pune Police, and subsequently, the NIA — which took over the probe in the Elgaar Parishad event FIR — claimed that the meeting was part of a conspiracy linked to the CPI(Maoist) group. Khalid’s statement also said that two letters were shown to him in connection with the case. While denying that he doesn’t know why his name was mentioned in one of them, he said that he does not have any connection with CPI(Maoist).

Apart from this, the evidence submitted by NIA included annual reports, activities, bank accounts, funds received and details of the members of Bagaicha – an organisation co-founded by Swamy in Ranchi.

The central agency has included records of a legal workshop held at Bagaicha by the Persecuted Prisoners Solidarity Committee (PPSC), which the NIA called was a “frontal organisation” for the banned group – a charge denied by Swamy when he was alive.

The evidence stated that the workshop held in December 2015 was attended by Elgaar Parishad case co-accused lawyers Sudha Bharadwaj and Surendra Gadling, among others. The schedule of the two-day workshop showed that sessions were held on salient aspects of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act and other legal procedures, including arrest procedures, bail, prisoners’ rights, data collection and publicisation on militarisation in conflict areas.

A witness was quoted as saying that the meeting was held to understand the problems of undertrials based on research done by Bagaicha.

The NIA has also included statements of Bagaicha’s former and current members. Two of the witnesses were shown
documents related to another forum – Lok Manch – of which Bagaicha was a facilitating centre. The document included mention of establishing working relations with certain banned rebel groups with Swamy as the sole designated person for it whenever necessary. One of the witnesses said that this content was not Lok Manch’s.

The witnesses were also asked about the remuneration Swamy received at Bagaicha and his connection with a person linked with a member of a group claimed to be a frontal organisation. The witness also told the NIA that Swamy took a keen interest in displacement issues of people and participated in demonstrations and rallies.

Further, the evidence included a request letter sent to the state forensic science laboratory (FSL) by the NIA for comments on reports by Arsenal Consulting, a US-based forensics firm, which had said that devices of accused Rona Wilson was infected with a malware planted through an email two years before his arrest in
2018.

The evidence does not include or clarify on whether the FSL had responded to the letter with comments. A petition filed by Wilson on the Arsenal report is pending before the Bombay High Court.