New Delhi: The 2,695-page charge sheet released by Delhi police last week echoes all claims made on previous charge sheets about the anti-CAA movement’s role in the February 2020 riots, with one crucial exception: Investigators have dropped his shameful claim that the conspiracy sparked violence in northeast Delhi during the visit to India by US President Donald Trump, hatched in a meeting on January 8, 2020.
That claim, made on two charge sheets that have already been filed in cases related to FIR 65/2020 and FIR 101/2020, was evidently false, because the very idea of a Trump visit was first reported on January 13. .
The January 8 plan, police had said, aimed to “smear the country in the international arena” and shake up the central government on the issue of the Citizenship (Amendment) Law and the National Registry of Citizens.
Police never responded to media reports about this glaring discrepancy in dates, putting a question mark on the veracity of their other claims. However, the latest charge sheet filed by the Delhi Police Special Cell in the ‘riot conspiracy case’ registered under FIR 59/2020 has quietly removed the ‘Trump’ angle from its description of the 8 January, in which former student leader Umar Khalid, former city councilman Tahir Hussain and community activist Khalid Saifi allegedly participated and moved this dimension of the “conspiracy” to a less implausible date.
Thus, the charge sheet for the special cell, which The wire has agreed – he makes the following statement in his key section, entitled ‘A Chronology of the Conspiracy’:
The visit of the President of the United States, Donald Trump, known to the conspirators since January 14, 2020, when it was first broken in the television media, got a formal schedule declared [sic] on 02.11.2020. In fulfillment and promotion of the common conspiracy, a meeting of the leaders of the protest sites of Chand bagh, Mustafabad, Kardumpuri and Jafrabad was held on the middle night of February 16/17, 2020 at 2 am. At the meeting it was decided and agreed that a coordinated blockade of traffic on the roads would be carried out, that is, Chakka Jaam during the visit of the President of the United States, Donald Trump, by the members of all the protest sites in the northeast of Delhi. After Chakka Jaam, all members of the protest site will take violent measures to intensify the protests. (original emphasis)
While Delhi police still say that Khalid, Hussain and Saifi had a secret meeting at the Popular Front of India office in Shaheen Bagh on January 8, where they claim the violence was planned, they apparently no longer believe what was stated on your previous job title sheets. :
“In [the January 8] meeting, it was decided to have a big bang for the Central Government. it could be shaken on the CAA / NRC issue and thus smear the country in the international arena. At the meeting, Umar Khalid had assured that he would not worry about the fund, as the PFI organization would also be ready to provide funds and logistics for these riots. These riots were planned to occur during or before the visit of the President of the United States, Donald Trump, in February 2020. “
Addressing Umar Khalid for Amravati Speech
However, the latest charge sheet continues to paint Umar Khalid as a key mastermind, claiming that his February 17 speech at Amravati in Maharashtra, in which he had spoken of the need for a Gandhian movement and suggested that people come out to the streets during the Trump meeting. visit to India to protest central government policies, actually aimed at inciting riots in Delhi.
This accusation was first leveled against Khalid and the anti-CAA movement by the TI cell of the Bharatiya Janata Party and later by the Union Minister of the Interior, Amit Shah.
The charge sheet FIR 59/2020 includes responses from two television channels, Republic TV and TV 18, both of which had shown an edited excerpt from Khalid’s long speech, in which they told the police that they had no raw footage of the event. from Amravati and that he had obtained the clip they did show from BJP IT’s cell chief, Amit Malviya.
Given that the police managed to obtain the original recording, the charge sheet includes a transcript of Khalid’s full speech. However, the police do not draw attention to or take note of the fact that Khalid repeatedly insists on the need for non-violent protests.
Kapil Mishra’s call to take to the streets accepted as peaceful
While the police uphold Khalid’s call for people to take to the streets as an incitement to violence, the charge sheet mildly accepts the explanations of BJP leader Kapil Mishra for his controversial comments made near the protest site. of Jafrabad against the CAA in northeast Delhi on February 23, just before the riots began.
BJP leader Kapil Mishra addressed supporters in Jafrabad on February 23. Photo: Twitter
Basically, Mishra had mobilized his supporters to gather at the protest site and, in the presence of the police, threatened to take justice into his own hands if the police did not force the anti-CAA protesters to leave. Shortly after he spoke, clashes broke out in Jafrabad and slowly spread to other parts of northeast Delhi, killing 52 civilians, 40 of whom were Muslims, and a policeman.
The charge sheet notes that police asked Mishra on July 27, “What did you mean that we will peacefully disperse while Trump is here, but after that we will not listen [the police]? “
Excerpt from page 1730 of the charge sheet in fiR 59/2020.
Mishra’s response was that his intention was only to tell the police that he too would sit in dharna if the road blockade caused by the anti-CAA protesters was not cleared. Denying having made a speech, she said she told DCP: “I ask you to clean up Jafrabad and Chand Bagh. After that, we will be forced to hit the road. “
The charge sheet does not contain an analysis of why Mishra’s call, made in the middle of a powder keg, for supporters to take to the streets was peaceful, while Khalid’s Amravati speech was violent.
Mishra’s role was not further investigated and no explanations were sought for the use of his speech by a Hindutva WhatsApp group whose members have been implicated in the murder of Muslims in the riots.
The charge sheet is also silent on the role of other BJP leaders such as Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur, who had exhorted his supporters to fire on ‘traitors’ during the precise period in which this’ conspiracy unfolded. ‘. Police say the chronology of the Delhi riots dates back to shortly before the approval of the CAA last December.
The entire anti-CAA movement is part of the terrorist plot
The gist of the police case is that the entire movement against the CAA, from the Jamia Millia students’ march that saw the burning of buses near Friends Colony on December 15, to the iconic Shaheen Bagh women’s protest, was of the beginning of a plot to promote terrorism and disruptive activity. This is how the charge sheet justifies the invocation of charges under the Illicit Activities (Prevention) Act against the 15 accused men and women.
The conspirators had decided in December itself “to organize large-scale riots at an appropriate time,” police say. “The date of January 14, 2020, when the imminent visit of US President Donald Trump passed into the public domain through television, gave the precipitating stimulus for the execution of the conspiracy.”
Based on a selective reading of chats on WhatsApp activist groups and the testimony of dozens of named and anonymous witnesses, many of whose statements share textual passages with each other, a tell-tale sign that investigating officers incited him, the police have built his plan around a simple proposal: The riots were sparked by a calculated decision to block the road in Jafrabad and other protest sites aimed at pitting Hindus against Muslims with the aim of shaming the Modi government and forcing it to remove the CAA-NRC.
Holes in the frame
There are many holes and contradictions in this story that will surely emerge during the trial, but here is one. The charge sheet claims that the Delhi Protest Support Group, essentially a WhatsApp group run by filmmaker Rahul Roy, was the mastermind behind the road blockade and thus the riots. No evidence is given of the DPSG’s involvement in the road blockade, other than the fact that its members debated its merits as the situation in Jafrabad developed. While neither member appears to have advocated for an obstacle, one DPSG participant who strongly questioned the chakka jaam It was Banojyotsana Lahiri. The police charge sheet appreciates her position, but does not reveal that she is, in fact, Umar Khalid’s partner. So how come Khalid is destined to be the main conspirator behind the road blockade while her partner fiercely argues that any road blockade would backfire?
In any event, even if you accept the tendentious argument that the roadblock sparked violence at the site because ‘pro-CAA’ crowds had gathered to confront them, the geography and dynamics of the violence that raged over three days make it clear there. There were other actors at work, including the police, who have been credibly accused of bias and partisanship.
In addition to treating the anti-CAA movement as a terrorist conspiracy, the charge sheet goes one step further, accusing the ‘conspirators’ of wanting to unleash violence as a means of ‘regaining’ the territory they had lost due to re-election. Narendra Modi as Prime Minister last May:
“Since the day the results of the 2019 parliamentary elections were declared, the tone and tenor of the public statements of the main conspirators in this case has shown a clear streak of affinity with the violence that had begun to manifest in their minds. This affinity for violence as the only option left to regain lost ground for some and create new ground for others was the foundation on which bridges of minds were built.
“The enactment of CAA and NRC gave the critical mass that key conspirators were looking at – it presented itself as the last chance to shape the mental violence streak that had brought them closer than ever. What followed was the result of this criminal conspiracy to commit violence … ”(emphasis added)
If the Delhi Police’s focus on ‘mental violence’ and ‘affinity for violence … is developed in [the conspirators’] minds’ seems reminiscent of a mental offense, the charge sheet leaves no room for doubt: “the mere fact that there was a conspiracy to organize riots is a substantive offense, good enough to prosecute and bring to justice the accused, “he says,” even if the riots and associated violence on a large scale would never have taken place.
.
