Form of words:
New Delhi: Former JNU student leader Umar Khalid told a court here on Monday that the statements of witnesses in the Delhi riots conspiracy case were written and given to him by someone else as the police had no evidence and the case against him could not be created. on the half-truth.
Khalid and several others have been booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), a strict anti-terror law, and accused of being the “mastermind” of the North-East Delhi riots in February, 2020. was imposed, which left 53. People were killed and more than 700 were injured.
Arguing his bail plea before Additional Sessions Judge Amitabh Rawat, senior advocate Tridip Paes read out the statements of three protected witnesses and claimed that they were contradictory and ripe.
During the proceedings, Paes read out a police charge from the chargesheet in connection with an alleged secret meeting in Delhi’s Seelampur area on January 23 and 24 last year, in which Khalid had allegedly directed that the protest be turned into riots. And this resulted in bleeding. of policemen and others.
Denying that it was a secret meeting, Paes argued that its photographs were taken and uploaded on Facebook. “I didn’t know that secret meetings were held on Facebook. Does it really seem secret to this Court?,” he asked.
He also called Sierra, a protected witness who had given a statement to the police on this alleged secret meeting.
“From the statement, it is clear that Sierra is the chaiwala” [teaseller] One who comes to the meetings and gives tea. He is the only witness who says that the meeting was secret. All other witnesses do not claim this. They all contradict each other,” Pais said.
He further added, “How will someone speak in front of the chaiwala and spill all the beans of the conspiracy? The witness waits from January to June and miraculously appears before the police. Clearly a ripe witness.”
Paes asked how a tea seller miraculously knows the names of all the people in the secret meeting who are not even there.
The lawyer said, “They said Natasha Narwal was present but she was not there. Should you believe this man?”
“You [Police] There can’t be a half truth to go to me and make a case against me. Clearly, these statements were written by someone else, given to these people to tell them their own because you have no proof. So, call you people to the police station and tell them that I want to frame them,” said the lawyer.
Paes further said that when Sierra did not record her statement before a magistrate under Section 164 of CrPC, the police went to Smith, another protected witness.
The lawyer said Smith, however, did not say whether the meeting was secret or took place in a secret office. The reference to Umar Khalid is his presence in a meeting and nothing more, he said. So, the secret meeting theory is subsumed by this witness.
He also referred to Bravo, another protected witness, and told the court that his statements were heavily relied upon to implicate Khalid. Bravo made a statement about the Delhi Protest Support Group (DPSG) WhatsApp group linked to Khalid and the formation of a high-level committee in December 2019.
“Interestingly, only four messages were sent by me on the DPSG group. I just told the people the location of the picket site. This is the sum total of my conversations,” Paes said.
“He said that Bravo admitted that he was part of the group and left it due to disagreements on February 22, 2020, but gave a statement to the police on June 8. I wonder how such a statement could come out after so many months ,” He asked .
Furthermore, he said that there was a pattern of false allegations in the Bravo FIR and chargesheet. Paes told the court that the witness had selected names in his statement.
“There is no high level committee. He cooks the food of the high level committee. He cherry-picks the name. The roles that are assigned to most people are not arrested and I get arrested. Whenever he refers to me, he refers to me by other names. He has more responsibilities. Mine is unimportant or not at all,” Pais said.
He further added, “The witness is unable to point to a specific activity committed by me on the basis of which it can be said that I committed an illegal act, a terrorist act.”
In a previous hearing on November 2, Khalid had said that the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests were secular, but the chargesheet in the Delhi riots conspiracy case was communal and the police fabricated a story to suit his story, called it. A “naked form of false implication”.
Besides them, JNU students Natasha Narwal and Devangana Kalita, Jamia Coordination Committee member Safoora Zargar, former AAP councilor Tahir Hussain and several others have also been booked under the stringent Anti-Terrorism Act in the case.
read also: Why did Umar Khalid’s Delhi riots trial not start even a year after the chargesheet was filed?
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