The Delhi Police attempted to illegally detain prominent human rights activist and national secretary of the Association for Protection of Civil Rights (APCR), Nadeem Khan, just hours after filing a first information report accusing him of "promoting enmity between groups" on November 30.
This followed a search conducted by the Delhi police at the organisation's office in Delhi on November 29. The FIR was filed the next day and within hours police personnel from the Shaheen Bagh police station including the Station House Officer (SHO) reached Nadeem Khan's brother's residence in Bangalore to arrest him.
Only after Khan refused to comply with the demand to accompany the officers to Delhi without being served a notice and his lawyers challenging the attempts to arrest him, did the police paste a notice on the walls of the APCR office asking him to appear for investigation.
"The attempts to "intimidate" and illegally detain Nadeem Khan was made by the Delhi Police as they knew they could not arrest him legally," said an APCR office bearer, who doesn't want to identified due to confidentiality reasons.
"According to the Supreme Court guidelines and established criminal law, if the charges involved carry a punishment of less than seven years, there is no provision for immediate arrest. In the FIR against Nadeem Khan, all the charges are punishable by less than three years. Therefore, there is no question of an arrest," he added.
The APCR person alleged that the accusations against Khan in the FIR were made "out of pressure that they (Delhi Police) got from an anti-social mob on X (formerly Twitter)".
TNIE spoke to the SHO of Shaheen Bagh who refused to comment on the allegations.
The FIR says that the case followed a post on X by one Mr Sinha who shared a video featuring Khan, wherein he speaks about the human rights violations committed against minority communities.
In the video, Khan is seen giving a tour of an exhibition stall of the APCR at an event in Hyderabad on November 16. The stall exhibited evidence of hate crimes, hate speeches and other human rights violations that have happened over the last ten years against Muslims and other minority communities in India.
The stall also featured the cases fought by APCR in different courts, legal guidelines for the victims of hate crimes and arbitrary arrests.
According to the FIR filed by the Delhi Police, Khan is accused of trying to provoke people by "demonstrating like this on public platform, preparing Museum, preparing Jail, leveling allegations by affixing photo of well known public personalities, showing torturing to one specific community."
He has been booked under charges 196 and 353(2) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS).
The office bearer at APCR feels that the charges would not stand legally.
"They are accusing him of making hate speeches, which is completely absurd because he has consistently gone to court against hate speech. Even in the video, he talks about instances of hate speeches and hate crimes and legal remedies and how these things have to be dealt with in courts. So, these charges are absurd and I don't think the case will legally stand," he said.
The Delhi High Court on Tuesday, while granting interim protection to Nadeem Khan slammed the Delhi Police for the charges in the FIR.
“We are in a democratic country. The harmony of our nation is not so fragile. It is not so fragile that merely one exhibition, merely someone shouting, it cannot be. Consider people as intelligent…You repose very little faith in the common man. Common man is intelligent. Common man isn't so fragile…” the court said.
'Targeted witch hunt'
The People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) in a statement on December 1, condemning the FIR against Nadeem Khan expressed "shock at the manner in which Delhi Police is conducting a targeted witch-hunt" against the human rights activist "at the instigation of a few social media accounts on Twitter."
"Anybody who gives the Muslim voice a space, lends a ear to the aggrieved and tries to use legitimate human rights to educate, build awareness and public opinion... they (government) don't want that voice. They want the Muslims to quietly take all this," said Kavita Srivastava, the National President of PUCL.
Mentioning the case against Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair, who was recently booked by the UP police for sharing a speech made by Hindu extremist leader Yati Narsinghanand on X, Kavita emphasised that the crimes committed by the "perpetrators of hate speech" are seen as lesser while those calling it out are being incriminated.
"APCR putting out the exhibition detailing what happened to Muslims in the last ten years is seen as worse than the crimes that were committed. Any kind of legitimate human rights activity including documentation is being seen as worse than the crime itself," Kavita pointed out.
According to the APCR source, the case against Nadeem Khan is very similar to that against Zubair.
"The video (of the exhibition) is two weeks old, but the targeting has been happening for many months. It is very similar to what happened with Zubair, in fact, the first person they have really targeted was him. His case is even worse. It is the same mob, the same people... they first targeted Zubair, and now they are targeting us. The video is just an excuse," he said.
Zubair has close to 12 FIRs filed against him. In the latest FIR filed by the UP police, Zubair is charged with section 152 of the BNS which amounts to "endangering unity, sovereignty and integrity of India," and carries life sentence or a prison term for up to seven years and a fine.
Zubair was arrested in 2022 by the Delhi Police accusing him of "hurting the religious sentiments of the Hindu community," after a right-wing-affiliated twitter handle took objection to a 2018 tweet posted by him. He was later granted bail in the case.
Human rights activists, journalists and organisations including the DIGIPUB, the Press Club of India and Reporters Without Borders have condemned the FIRs against Zubair.
DIGIPUB, a collective of more than 90 digital outlets across the country called the police action against Zubair a "vindictive and unreasonable over-reach by the agencies of the state."
The office bearer at APCR feels the same about his organisation. He said that APCR is being targeted for the important interventions it has made in the past few months.
"In the last few months, the APCR has gone to the court and has been able to get orders which to an extent prevented the hate propaganda," he said.
Pointing out some of the interventions, he said, "The APCR petitioned the SC against the UP and Uttarakhand government orders to display owners' names in eateries during the Kanwar yatra leading to the apex court ordering a stay on it. Similarly, APCR has also intervened in cases related to bulldozing of homes and properties."
"The courts have looked at our interventions as legitimate and has given favourable orders stopping the state from carrying out illegal activities. I think it is these interventions that infuriated them," he said.
Kavita agreed, adding that APCR has been "extremely prompt in its actions as a human rights organisation" and the police actions and the social media campaigns against the organisation and its office bearers are attempted at delegitimising and criminalising their work.
"It has put forward a lot of initiatives. It intervened at the right moment, the sense of timing was good. It is also spread across the country," she said.
The APCR recently approached the Allahabad HC seeking an independent probe into the alleged incidents of police atrocity in Sambhal where at least six Muslim youths including a minor were killed.
"A few days after the PIL was filed in Allahabad HC, an FIR was filed against the joint secretary of APCR in UP. This targeting is happening throughout and it has nothing to do with any individual offence," the APCR person said.