Former JNU student leader Umar Khalid, arrested under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in the northeast Delhi riots conspiracy case, called it a “cooked up” case. On Monday, August 23, he told a Delhi court that there were various contradictions in the claims of the Delhi police. Umar Khalid, along with several others, has been booked under the stringent anti-terror law UAPA. They are accused of being the “masterminds” of the February 2020 violence, which had left 53 people dead and over 700 injured. He has sought bail in the case.
According to Live Law, reading from a letter, Pais said that Umar Khalid had been “framed by the press,” which left out other parts of his speech. Pais pointed out that then the police sent a notice asking for the “raw footage” of the speech recorded on the spot. “Please see these are journalists who never go on the ground to see speech but are very happy to show it. They never went there. The reply says they don’t have the raw footage and that the video was obtained from a tweet done by a member of BJP,” he said.
Republic TV’s reply to the notice seeking Khalid’s speech footage, which Pais read out in the court, said, “The footage was not recorded by our cameraperson. It was tweeted by Mr Amit Malviya…” News18 also responded, stating that they took the footage from Amit Malviya.
The lawyer later also showed the full video of Khalid’s speech, apprising the court that his client did not give any call for violence through the speech and in fact gave “a message of unity” to the people based on Gandhi ji. “It was termed as terror. Content is not seditious. He is talking about democratic power. He referred to Gandhi,” Pais added.
Umar Khalid’s counsel also argued that as per the police case, the JNU student conspired with other accused on January 8 to cause riots during former US President Donald Trump’s visit. However, the news about his visit was announced only in February.
These are the kind of lies they are peddling. This is a joke. This FIR is a cooked-up theory. Is it that easy to prosecute people? Do you have no responsibility as a prosecution?” Pais said.
In April, the former JNU student was granted bail in one of the riot cases. The court while granting him bail noted that he was not physically present at the scene of the crime on the date of the incident. Besides him, JNU students Natasha Narwal and Devangana Kalita, Jamia Coordination Committee members Safoora Zargar, former AAP councillor Tahir Hussain and several others have also been booked under the stringent law in the case.
This story first appeared on thenewsminute.com