New Delhi: Delhi Police strongly opposed bail petitions of activists Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam and others in the 2020 Delhi riots by referring to the recent Red Fort car blast case and busting of a white-collar terror module.
As the bail petitions came up for hearing in the Supreme Court on Thursday, Additional Solicitor General SV Raju, who appeared for Delhi Police, made the point that a trend has emerged where intellectuals are using state funding to become doctors and engineers, and then engaging in anti-national activities.
The ASG argued that when intellectuals become terrorists, they become more dangerous than those functioning on the ground. “Intellectuals use state funding to become doctors. Then, they do nefarious activities. They are much more dangerous,” ASG Raju said.
Imam and Khalid were booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (UAPA), the stringent anti-terror law, for being allegedly part of a conspiracy leading to communal riots in northeast Delhi in February 2020 over the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). More than 50 people died in the violence and over 700 inj
ured.
Delhi Police said during the hearing that the violence was not spontaneous, but an “orchestrated, pre-planned, and well-designed” attack.
Showing videos of Sharjeel giving “inflammatory speeches” against the CAA before the bill was passed, the ASG pointed out that the former was an engineering graduate. “Nowadays, there is a trend that doctors, engineers are not doing their professions but engaging in anti-national activities,” he stated.
The ASG claimed before the apex court that the activists wanted to block supplies to Delhi and economically choke the ‘chicken’s neck’ in Assam — the narrow stretch of land that connects northeast India to the rest of the country. He went on to say that the bigger objective was regime change.
“It was planned in such a way that it coincided with Donald Trump’s visit. This was not a coincidence but a well-thought-out conspiracy,” ASG Raju said.
His observations came days after security agencies busted a Jaish-e-Mohammad-backed white collar terror module that was functioning from Faridabad’s Al-Falah University. Around 2,900 kilograms of IED-making material were seized from the premises of a doctor earlier this month. His accomplice, Dr Umar Nabi, blew off a car near the iconic Red Fort on November 10, killing 13 people. Several other doctors have since been arrested and detained.
Delhi police raised the Red Fort blast issue when a bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and NV Anjaria was hearing the pleas of Imam, Khalid and three others.