By TCN News
As organizations and individuals continue speaking in favour of Muslim activists arrested on false charges of inciting violence in anti CAA-NRC protests, a community of activists took to virtual space for an online press conference on Thursday to condemn the witch hunt of students and activists by Delhi Police.
“The spate of arrests of anti-CAA activists by the Delhi police, in the middle of the pandemic and lockdown refuses to stop,” resonated the statement as the latest arrest of another student activist, Asif Iqbal Tanha was reported. Asif was taken by Special Cell of Delhi Police for interrogation on May 16 and was produced in front of a magistrate and declared arrested on May 17, in connection to the case pertaining to police brutality on students at Jamia Millia Islamia on December 15.
The online conference, coordinated by activist Nadeem Khan noted: “it was the Jamia students who bore the brunt of the violence on that dreadful night when police barged into the university and the library premises and brutalized the students unprovoked.” Several other professionals like Supreme Court senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan, human rights activist Teesta Setalvad, Delhi University Professor Apoorvanand Jha, Rajya Sabha MP Manoj Jha, civil rights activist Kavita Krishnan, All India Muslim Majlis e Mushawarat president Navaid Hamid and Vice President of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, Mohammad Salim Engineer participated in the briefing.
The conference has addressed media houses across the nation, raising some significant points about detention of anti-CAA protestors. The judge granted Asif judicial custody of 14 days but his friends who went to meet him in Crime Branch to deliver clothes had informed that “Asif was beaten up by Special Cell Police on May 16” while one of his close friends received a call from him saying that “he was beaten up by a jail Munshi because he was a Jamia student.”
The online briefing highlighted that in arresting Safoora Zargar, Meeran Haider and Shifa Ur Rehman and the recent most of Asif, Delhi Police disclosed a similar pattern where they are linking up anti-CAA Muslim activists with Delhi riots. With a deeper examination of FIRs filed in connection to the riots, it is revealed that in the beginning all the arrests – of Popular Front activists Mohammad Danish, Pervez Alam and Mohammad Illyas, arrested on March 12 – had bailable positions. These leaders who had got bail on March 14 were not granted Station House bail on the day of the arrest. The judge had reprimanded the Investigating Officer (IO) for the same but there has been “no explanation by the IO as to why he had not offered bail to the accused persons at the first instance as per the constitutional as well as a procedural mandate.”
The pattern revealed that this particular FIR was again evoked when Ishrat Jahan was arrested along with Khalid Saifi and this time, more stringent sections like 302 was inserted in the FIR and Ishrat’s bail was subsequently rejected. Similarly, Gulfisha, another student and anti-CAA activist was arrested. Now with Asif, the same is repeated, in addition to four sections from the UAPA. The participants of the briefing concluded that the chronology of arrests are similar in that first a person is arrested under some case, and when they are about to get bail in the case, they are implicated in this particular FIR.
It is to note that FIRs which started with “all bailable offences have now been turned into almost an anti-terror case” and it is particularly targeting anti-CAA activists and students and framing them as “dreaded terrorist” who was “responsible for the Delhi riots.” Moreover, these FIRs are most “vaguely worded and makes sweeping generalizations and accusations which make it easy to be used against anybody,” said the statement. The distinguished community of activists, scholars, lawyers and other professionals stated that although the majority of victims in Delhi riots were Muslims, “all the arrested persons under this FIR so far are also Muslims,” thus revealing “the prejudiced behaviour of the Delhi Police and how they are using the pretext of the Delhi riots to target, frame and witch hunt anti-CAA activists.”
With regards to the Coronavirus pandemic, the conference accused Delhi Police of “insensitivity” as despite the lockdown, Police continued to call activists from outside to Special Cell office even after one of the head constables was found COVID positive. Particularly revealing in the address was the fact that Police are constantly pressurizing and harassing the activists called for interrogation to turn approvers for them, thus showing that “the Police do not have an iota of evidence for these arrests and are doing this to create a fake narrative and intimidate activists, particularly the ones who were vocal against CAA.” The statement singled this out, urging the higher authorities to stop the “desperate attempts by Delhi Police to make people sign on blank papers to pressurize them to turn approvers” as it is “disturbing and highly illegal.”
The collaborated efforts of the activists’ community through the online press address ended in a strong “condemnation of the witch-hunting of anti-CAA activists and the use of UAPA to intimidate students and activists in their peaceful democratic movement.”