Delhi riots larger conspiracy case | If precursor there, would cops have let Delhi burn: Umar Khalid in court

“There were two sets of people – one who were against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and others in favor of it. The distinction between the accused and witnesses will tell you the bias of the police,” Pais added.

This comes amid Khalid approaching the Supreme Court, challenging the September 2 Delhi High Court order denying him bail in the case. A bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and N V Anjaria is likely to hear his bail plea as well as that of activists Sharjeel Imam and Gulfisha Fatima on Friday.

According to the Delhi Police Special Cell, the riots were the result of a months-long “deep-rooted” conspiracy allegedly hatched after the Citizenship Amendment Bill was approved by the Cabinet in December 2019. The conspiracy pertained to the creation of 23 protest sites – which operated 24×7 – in Muslim-majority areas close to mosques and main roads, it has alleged.

It has also claimed that before the actual riots took place, a “replica” of the “riots took place in December 2019 on a lower scale but with similar characters and modus­ operandi”. The Special Cell has alleged that all the accused were part of a conspiracy to “escalate” the protest to a chakka jam “once critical mass is generated, when then US President Donald Trump visits Delhi in 2020”.

Addressing the court, Pais said on behalf of Khalid, “I have spent five years in custody in this joke of an FIR. This FIR doesn’t have the sanctity of law. Linkages with the actual offences are not there… The deaths of 50 people during the riots are being investigated by 751 different FIRs.”

“There is a target on somebody’s back. How to reach the target is the point of the chargesheet. You first decide who to catch and then reverse engineering takes place… a whole case is fabricated against them,” he added.

Reading from the police chargesheet, which had called Khalid a “veteran of sedition”, Pais argued that some speech dated 2016 has been mentioned though Khalid was then in police custody. “A chargesheet filed in that case makes it clear that he never said that… but this chargesheet mentions it. Please see the falsehood of the chargesheet. The manner in which it peddles lies,” he added.

Among the 18 people booked under UAPA in the case, while six are out on bail, the rest are in jail and have already spent over five years in prison.