Who is Umar Khalid and why he is in jail for last 4 years? Charges against him are….

Umar Khalid, a research-scholar at the JNU, was arrested by the Delhi Police in September 2020 and booked under UAPA. The police have named Khalid, 36, as the "key conspirator" in the Delhi communal violence case which led to the deaths of 53 people and left at least 200 others injured.

Umar Khalid, a former student activist of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) completed four years in jail on Saturday (September 14), following his arrest in the 2020 Delhi riots case. Khalid, who was dubbed as the “poster boy” of anti- Citizenship (Amendment) Act protests which rocked Delhi in 2020 and led to the deaths of 53 people, has spent four years in Tihar Jail after being booked under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).

What are the charges against Umar Khalid?

Umar Khalid, a research-scholar at the JNU, was arrested by the Delhi Police in September 2020 and booked under UAPA. The police have named Khalid, 36, as the “key conspirator” in the Delhi communal violence case which led to the deaths of 53 people and left at least 200 others injured.

According to the police, Umar Khalid “conspired” and “instigated” the deadly communal clashes which broke out in Delhi on February 24, 2020, after pro and anti-CAA protesters clashed in the capital city.

Since his arrest in the case, Khalid has been denied bail by the court on several occasions and spent the last four years without facing a trial or even the charges being framed against him and other activists who have been arrested in the same case.

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Notably, a Delhi court in December 2022, acquitted Umar Khalid in a case of alleged rioting, vandalism and arson at a parking lot in February 2020, but the former JNU student leader remains behind bars in the second case against him under the UAPA and various provisions of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for allegedly being a “mastermind” of the northeast Delhi riots.

Khalid, a 36-year-old researcher and scholar, was arrested on September 13, 2020, and charge-sheets were filed against him in 2020 and 2022. However, the framing of charges has been delayed in the second case against him and his attempts to seek bail have been turned down by courts.

No bail, no trial

Khalid has been awaiting trial in the second case for the past four years during which the courts have denied him bail. The jailed activist had also filed a plea challenging the constitutional validity of various UAPA provisions, which was amended by the Narendra Modi-led government in 2019, empowering the central government to designate an individual as a ‘terrorist’.

On March 24, 2022, a special court dismissed Khalid’s first bail , and the Delhi High Court rejected the appeal against it on October 18 of the same year, saying he was in constant touch with other co-accused and the allegations against him were prima facie true.

The high court had also said the actions of the accused prima facie qualified as a “terrorist act” under the UAPA.

It said that admittedly, the anti-CAA protests “metamorphosed into violent riots”, which “prima facie seemed to be orchestrated at the conspiratorial meetings” and the statements of the witnesses indicated Khalid’s “active involvement” in the protests.

Khalid then appealed in the Supreme Court against the Delhi High Court’s order, which had rejected his bail application.

Khaild’s bail application had been pending in the top court since April 6, 2023, and the proceedings were adjourned 13 times because of a variety of reasons.

On February 14, this year, the top court was told by senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Khalid, that he wished to withdraw the application due to a “change in circumstances”.

Sibal said, “I wish to argue the legal question (challenging UAPA provisions) but want to withdraw the bail plea due to a change in circumstances. We will try our luck in the trial court.”

On May 28, however, the special court dismissed Khalid’s second regular bail plea, saying its previous order of March 2022 rejecting his first bail plea had attained finality.

It rejected the argument of Khalid’s counsel that the Supreme Court’s view about “prima facie evidence” against an accused had changed because of the grant of bail to activist Vernon Gonsalves in July 2023 and academic-activist Shoma Kanti Sen on April 5 this year in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case.

“As according to Vernon’s case as relied upon by counsel for the applicant, while considering bail, no deep analysis of the facts of a case can be done and only surface analysis of the probative value of evidence has to be done…

“As such the high court has in fact did complete surface analysis of probative value of the evidence while considering the prayer of the applicant for grant of bail and after doing so it was concluded that prima-facie case is made out against the applicant,” the court said.

On July 22 this year, a Delhi High Court judge recused himself from hearing Khaled’s bail plea, without assigning any reason and it is pending.

‘Umbrella conspiracy’

On December 5, 2022, a court had discharged Khalid and United Against Hate founder Khalid Saifi in the first case related to riots, saying the allegations against them pertained to an “umbrella conspiracy” or the larger conspiracy of riots, instead of the conspiracy in the present case.

Explaining the concept of umbrella conspiracy, the court said it was the larger conspiracy subsuming several small conspiracies hatched under it.

The FIR in the case was registered on the basis of the statement of Constable Sangram Singh who said a riotous mob had pelted stones on Main Karawal Nagar Road, besides setting ablaze several vehicles in a nearby parking lot on February 24, 2020.

On March 6, 2020, police had filed the FIR in the second case against Khalid and later invoked the UAPA on April 19, 2020. Later that year, the cops filed the main chargesheet on September 16, three days after arresting Khalid. In October 22, 2020, the first supplementary chargesheet in the case was filed.

The second supplementary chargesheet was filed on February 23, 2022, while the third and fourth supplementary charge sheets were filed on March 2 and June 7, 2022.

On September 4, a special court, while disposing of the applications of some accused seeking directions to Delhi Police for disclosing whether the investigation in the case was complete, allowed the prosecution to commence its arguments on framing of charges against the accused.

The Delhi High Court, however, on September 12 asked the trial court not to pass a final order on framing of charges till September 23.

The high court’s order came while hearing a plea by riots accused Devangana Kalita seeking direction to the police to provide her with certain videos and WhatsApp chats in two cases, including one under the anti-terror law UAPA.