Umar Khalid has “scant regard” for Constitution, will quote Article 21 only for bail, Delhi Police tells SC

The Delhi Police on Friday vehemently objected to pleas for bail filed by former Jawaharlal Nehru University student leader Umar Khalid and others accused under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in the 2020 Delhi riots ‘larger conspiracy’ case, claiming that they only cite the Constitution for the sake of getting bail.

“These are people with scant regard for the Constitution. Only for bail, they will quote Article 21 (fundamental right to life and personal liberty) of the Constitution,” said Additional Solicitor General S.V. Raju, appearing for the Delhi Police. He was addressing a Supreme Court Bench headed by Justice Aravind Kumar in the concluding remarks of his response to the bail petitions.

Mr. Raju said the prosecution could complete the trial in two years if the accused did not delay the process. Khalid and others have blamed the police for delaying the trial, and sought bail on the grounds that they have been incarcerated for the past five years as undertrials. Mr. Raju countered, saying that the accused were deliberately orchestrating the delay of the criminal proceedings to use it as a ground to get bail.

CCTV videos of riots shown

The police played a video in the courtroom for the second consecutive day. On Friday, the video showed a CCTV grab of a mob walking down a street in a place Mr. Raju identified as North-East Delhi during the riots of February 2020.

The November 20 hearing had seen the police play excerpts from the speeches of Sharjeel Imam, a co-accused of Khalid in the case. The speeches were shown to buttress the submissions of the police that the Imam had instigated people as part of a conspiracy to achieve the ultimate goal of a regime change through violence like in neighbouring Nepal and Bangladesh.

Mr. Raju said the violence was not spontaneous, but pre-planned. He said there was video evidence of people collecting sticks from a designated place and testing their strength to use them as weapons. There was heavy stone-pelting and even garbage was flung around.

When Justice Kumar asked whether these videos played in the Supreme Court were part of the chargesheet, Mr. Raju answered in the affirmative. The judge further asked the senior police counsel about the charges arraigned against the accused. Mr. Raju said they included conspiracy to cause violence; instigating crowds to organise chakka jams to freeze the supply of essentials to the national capital and bring economic distress; and to “choking Assam out of India”.

‘Conspirators destroyed CCTV cameras’

The law officer quoted from the statements of protected witnesses who claimed the conspirators were seen to be unhappy about the scale of violence that took place at North East Delhi on February 23, 2020. They had pointed out that rioters were nervous about the CCTVs. A protected witness, ‘Radium’, claimed to have witnessed a meeting in which the conspirators decided to destroy or disable the cameras.

Mr. Raju submitted from police records that largescale rioting had occurred after the street CCTVs were destroyed. A police constable was killed and other police personnel were injured in the attack following large-scale mobilisation. In the ensuing riots, an Intelligence Bureau officer was also killed.

Shadab Ahmad, who was arrested for murder of the police constable, attended a meeting with the conspirators, Mr. Raju said. He added that accused Tahir Hussain, Shifa Ur Rahman, Meeran Haider, Ishrat Jahan and Khalid Saifi had financed the riots, in what he termed “terror financing”.

The court adjourned till Monday to hear the rejoinder of the petitioners to the police submissions.