Updated: September 24, 2020 10:56:04 pm
Khalid was arrested on September 13 on UAPA charges in a case related to the riots in northeast Delhi in February this year. (File / Express Photo of Praveen Khanna)
More than 200 national and international academics, academics and artists issued a statement on Thursday in support of the former JNU student Umar Khalid, who is in custody, for his alleged role in the February riots in Delhi. The signatories have called the investigation a “premeditated witch hunt” and said Khalid was falsely implicated by Delhi police under the UAPA (Illicit Activities Prevention Act).
They have demanded that the government “release” Khalid and “all those falsely implicated and wrongfully imprisoned for protesting the CAA-NRC”, and “ensure that the Delhi police investigate the Delhi riots impartially and under the oath they took as public officials bound “by the Constitution of India.”
Some prominent individuals among the 208 signatories are linguist Noam Chomsky, authors Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, Arundhati Roy, Ramachandra Guha and Rajmohan Gandhi, filmmakers Mira Nair and Anand Patwardhan, historians Romila Thapar and Irfan Habib, and activists Medha Patkar and Aruna Roy.
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“We stand in solidarity and are outraged by the brave young scholar and activist Umar Khalid… He is charged with sedition, conspiracy to assassinate and in compliance with sections of India’s strict anti-terrorism law, UAPA. This process of criminalizing all dissent has been going on for some years and even under a COVID 19 pandemic, relentless political arrests on fabricated charges are punishing the innocent long before they are brought to trial, ”they wrote.
Signatories called the anti-CAA movement “the largest and most peaceful democratic rights movement in independent India” that “proudly followed in the footsteps of Mahatma Gandhi and embodied the spirit of the Indian Constitution drafted under the leadership of Dr. . BR Ambedkar “.
“Umar Khalid became a powerful young voice of truth in this movement, speaking at nearly 100 meetings across India, in small towns and large cities, upholding the values of the Indian constitution; articulating the dreams of all young Indians – to be free from hunger, deprivation, discrimination and fear. He made his claim to the full measure of citizenship, he spoke for all marginalized peoples and, above all, Umar spoke for peace, ”they said.
“He has been projected as a jihadist and a figure of hatred by committed Indian media sectors, not only because he speaks persuasively against government policies that he believes are unjust, but also because he is Muslim,” they added.
The statement lists all those arrested under the UAPA, including activists Pinjra Tod, Devangana Kalita and Natasha Narwal. “To send its chilling message to all critics, the state has chosen the best and brightest in India; the young, the intrepid, the dreamers of a better country, where inequality is not a bitter pill for some, but a vile aberration to fight at all times ”, they said.
“Currently, 19 of the 21 people falsely accused under terrorism laws are Muslim. If we allow her identity to become her crime, India will be put to shame in the global community of secular nations. These people are not terrorists and the police investigation into the Delhi riots is not an investigation. It is a premeditated witch hunt, ”they said.
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The statement also mentions that several leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) made “hate speech inciting their followers to ‘shoot traitors'”, but “no cases have been recorded against them.”
“The role of the BJP leader, Kapil Mishra, has surprisingly not attracted the slightest police scrutiny; despite the fact that he stood in northeast Delhi on February 23, 2020, along with the Deputy Commissioner of Police, and threatened that his supporters would ‘take matters into their own hands’ if the CAA protesters were not withdrawn . It is widely alleged that this speech unleashed violence between February 23 and 26, 2020. Instead, young protesters have been attacked and imprisoned, ”they added.
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