Court takes cognizance of 17.5K-page riots chargesheet less than a day after filing

New Delhi: A Delhi court on Thursday took cognizance of a 17,500-page chargesheet in the north-east Delhi riots cases naming only anti-CAA activists and protesters as accused and none from the side supporting the contentious law — within 24 hours of the Delhi Police Special Cell

filing it.

In a related development, the court also granted bail to student leader and Pinjra Tod activist Natasha Narwal in one of the three cases she has been arrested in.

The court said Narwal should be granted bail in FIR number 50/2020. However, Narwal's lawyer Adit Pujari told Millennium Post that she remains to be granted bail in the "main conspiracy" case and that bail had been granted in the other two cases.

When advocate Mehmood Pracha, appearing on behalf of at least two of those chargesheeted, argued that a sessions judge cannot take cognizance of a chargesheet citing Section 193 of the CrPC, the judge said he had already taken cognizance. To this, Pracha said that the order should record that he was not heard before the court took

cognizance.

Moreover, judge Amitabh Rawat at the additional sessions court posted the matter next for September 21 and directed that all 15 accused be produced (virtually or physically) on that date. The court also noted that it will be providing a copy of the chargesheet to the accused and their counsel

by Monday.

However, when advocate Sowjhanya Shankaran, appearing for Jamia student leader Asif Iqbal Tanha sought for a copy of the chargesheet on Thursday itself citing an undertaking submitted by the Delhi Police, the judge said that since he had already taken cognizance, the court would now be able to provide the chargesheet soon enough. Shankaran argued that their clients had been languishing in jail for long enough.

Apart from former AAP councillor Tahir Hussain, Narwal and Tanha, the humongous chargehseet also names Jamia Coordination Committee member Safoora Zargar, ex-Congress councillor Ishrat Jahan, student leader and Pinjra Tod activist Devangana Kalita, Jamia student Miran Haider, prominent activist Khalid Saifi, Tasleem Ahmed, Shadab Ahmed, Saleem Malik, Mohd Saleem Khan and Athar Khan along with Mohd Parvez Ahmed and Mohd

Illyas.

On Wednesday, Delhi Police in its chargesheet mentioned several Whatsapp conversations where alleged 'footsoldiers' were given instructions by top-level conspirators to incite and engineer riots at 25 locations under the garb of 'secular protests'. And as the Delhi Police continues to claim impartiality, none of the accused in the "master case" in the riots are supporters of the citizenship law. In fact, neither does it look into the role of senior BJP leaders who delivered speeches inciting violence against peaceful protesters hours before the rioting began.

The police have instead focused on documenting their theory that anti-CAA protesters had provoked Hindus and pro-CAA agitators by the mere act of protesting and that Hindus and pro-CAA agitators had merely "reacted" to the purported

"provocation".