NEW DELHI: Strongly opposing the bail pleas of activists Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam and others in the 2020 northeast Delhi riots, the Delhi Police told the Supreme Court on Tuesday that the violence was not spontaneous but an “orchestrated, pre-planned and well-designed” assault on the sovereignty of the nation.
Khalid, Imam, Gulfisha Fatima, Meeran Haider and Rehman were booked under the anti-terror law and provisions of the erstwhile IPC for allegedly being the “masterminds” of the riots, which left 53 people dead and over 700 injured.
Appearing for the Delhi Police, Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta urged the court to dismiss the bail pleas, asserting that the riots were engineered under the guise of anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protests. “This was not a spontaneous riot. It was a well-designed, well-crafted, well-orchestrated riot. That will emerge from the evidence collected,” he told a bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and N.V. Anjaria. “The anti-CAA protests were used as camouflage to engineer communal riots with a sinister motive,” he submitted.
Seeking rejection of the bail applications, Mehta argued that a misleading public narrative had been built, whereas evidence showed a coordinated attempt to polarise communities. “There was a systematic effort to divide society on communal lines. It was not a mere agitation against a government act,” he said.
Referring to accused Sharjeel Imam, he claimed Imam had spoken of uniting Muslims to “separate the Northeast from India.” He further argued that the accused were responsible for delays in the trial. “We are ready to complete the trial within six months, the moment they cooperate,” he said.