More than 200 academics, academics and national and international artists issued a statementon Thursday, demanding the release of former JNU student Umar Khalid, who is in custody for his alleged role in the northeast Delhi riots.
The signatories, including linguist Noam Chomsky, authors Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, Arundhati Roy, Ramachandra Guha, and Rajmohan Gandhi, filmmakers Mira Nair and Anand Patwardhan, historians Romila Thapar, Ramchandra Guha, and Irfan Habib, and activists Medha Patkar and Aruna Roy – have called the Delhi police investigation a “premeditated witch hunt”.
They said the government should release Khalid and all those who, according to them, were “falsely implicated” and “unjustly imprisoned” for protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Citizens Registry (NRC).
They said the government should “ensure that the Delhi police investigate the Delhi riots impartially under the oath they took as public officials subject to the Constitution of India.”
When approached, the Delhi police spokesman did not comment on the matter.
“We stand in solidarity and are outraged by the brave young academic and activist Umar Khalid, arrested in New Delhi on September 14, 2020, on trumped-up charges of manipulating the Delhi riots in February 2020. He is charged with sedition, conspiracy to murder, and under sections of India’s strict anti-terrorism law, the Illicit Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). This process of criminalizing all dissent has been underway 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, ”the article reads. release.
Calling the anti-CAA movement the most peaceful democratic rights movement in independent India, the signatories said: “Umar Khalid became a powerful young voice of truth in this movement, speaking at nearly 100 meetings across the India, in small towns and 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 for the full measure of citizenship, he spoke for all marginalized peoples and, above all, Umar spoke for peace.
“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, ”the statement added.
Earlier this month, Delhi Police Commissioner SN Shrivastava had said that they had screened large numbers of people regardless of their religion and party affiliation and dismissed allegations that they were targeting a particular community.
The signatories said that no case has been recorded against the leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for their alleged hate speech and criticized the Delhi Police for their investigation of the unrest cases.
Many activists have said that in the name of the investigation, the police arrested anti-government voices while being soft on members of the ruling party for their alleged role in the unrest.
However, the BJP’s Delhi unit said the police had investigated the alleged charges against its members but found no evidence.
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