Delhi riots: Umar Khalid didn't take security to 'conspiratorial meetings', says charge sheet

New Delhi, Nov 25: Former JNU student leader Umar Khalid did not take the personal security officers, provided to him following an attempted firing at him in 2018, to his "conspiratorial meetings", police has alleged in a supplementary charge sheet while explaining his role in the northeast Delhi riots.

The “ease and poise” with which Khalid was navigating both the ideologies of “left and ultra left” strains of political thoughts indicated that his position in the overall power matrix was “very, very close to the very top”, it alleged. According to the charge sheet, Khalid allegedly held meetings with his associates at different places since January wherein the conspiracy to “Chakka Jaam” and the large scale communal violence was hatched.

“It is pertinent to mention here that accused Umar Khalid had been provided personal security officers (PSOs) by Delhi Police after there was an attempted firing incident near Constitution Club in New Delhi where he had gone to attend a meeting called by United Against Hate. “However, as the investigation of this case has brought on record, accused Umar Khalid did not take the PSOs when he was meeting his associates for conspiratorial meetings,” it said.

A Delhi court had taken cognisance of the supplementary charge sheet on Tuesday. It further alleged that the conspiracy grew in an organic manner — from the formation of a group called Muslim Students of JNU (MSJ), an “overtly communal seed” that was sown after the CAB (Citizenship Amendment Bill) had received the assent of the Cabinet to the subsequent formation of Jamia Coordination Committee and finally the emergence of Delhi Protest Support Group (DPSG), which provided a “secular facade” and “naxal genes” of violent resistance to an otherwise “radically communal agenda”.

It said compared to "Khalid in 2016, Khalid in 2020 was unapologetic proponent of political Islamic extremism” who was expressing his designs through chosen commanders while maintaining symbiotic linkages with left and ultra left strains of political thought.

“The connectivity of Umar Khalid with the wider kaleidoscope of activists, accused and co-conspirators pointed to his centrality in the entire saga of events... The ease and poise with which Umar Khalid was navigating both the ideologies indicate that his position in the overall power matrix was very, very close to the very top. The police said that the systematic interrogation of Khalid has brought the investigation closer to the roots and the pinnacle of the conspiracy.

“Umar Khalid was the convergence point of the twin lines of pan-Islamica and Ultra-Left anarchism which had incubated, nurtured and propagated the common conspiracy, all squarely aimed at violent subjugation of the Government established by law.

“The total flow of the conspiracy, as it related to the deliberate acts of gross communal violence orchestrated under the watch of Umar Khalid, funneled out from the Delhi Protest Support Group (DPSG) as the executive facade,” the charge sheet claimed.

It said that further investigation was being carried out to bring to light the roles played by the top minds of these two violent strains of human thoughts for their role in this common conspiracy. Communal violence had broken out in northeast Delhi on February 24 after clashes between Citizenship (Amendment) Act supporters and its protesters spiralled out of control leaving at least 53 people dead and around 200 injured.