new delhi: Even as evidence of two more chat groups come to the fore in the Special Cell's 17,500-page chargesheet that holds only anti-CAA protesters responsible for inciting the north-east Delhi riots, the Delhi Police continues to struggle to come up with evidence for a "conspiracy to incite riots" or a plan to resort to violent action in these chat transcripts. Instead, as in the case of the DPSG WhatsApp group, the police have relied on statements recorded before a magistrate by a group of "protected public witnesses".
In a section dedicated to the purported role of organisations such as Pinjra Tod in the alleged "conspiracy", the Delhi Police claim that student activist and co-accused in the case, Gulfisha Fatima, had created two WhatsApp groups to coordinate protests, plan sites, dates and times for marches and mobilise women for the demonstration. The chat groups were called "Warrior" and "Auroto Ka Inkilab" and Pinjra Tod activists Devangana Kalita and Natasha Narwal were also members of these groups.
While the Delhi Police cite transcripts of these chats in their chargesheet, accessed by Millennium Post, to show that the activists were planning and organising protests against the controversial Citizenship law and mobilising women for these demonstrations, the police quickly fall back on the statements of "protected public witnesses" to conclude that the forums were used to incite the riots.
The police claimed that Gulfisha created the "Warrior" group chat on December 26 last year and that their plans were discussed in it. However, the transcripts attached by the police in the chargesheet show nothing but discussions on organising protests at places like Seelampur, mobilising women for different protest marches. The police claimed that chats of both groups were deleted by the accused Gulfisha, Natasha and Kalita.
Moreover, the Delhi Police has gone as far as calling Pinjra Tod — a women's collective to fight for equal rights — DU professor "Apoorvanad's team". It claimed that filmmaker Rahul Roy was in touch with the professor and following that Pinjra Tod members got involved in the anti-CAA protests starting with the one at Daryaganj on December 20 last year. Interestingly, while police admit that three members of Pinjra Tod including Kalita were injured in the clash with police, it was Kailta who was arrested.
In a section dedicated to the sit-in protests at Seelampur and Jafrabad areas, the police claim that these two groups were used to organise the sit-ins and that on the night of January 23-24, former JNU student leader Umar Khalid had visited the Seelampur site to hold "a secret meeting", where he purportedly "directed that protest should ultimately escalate to riots and should result in spilling of blood of policemen and others".
"Further, Umar Khalid told them that this is the only possible means to bring the government of India on its knees and force the Government to withdraw CAA/NRC. Umar Khalid had also directed accused persons to induce local women of Seelampur to stockpile knives, bottles, acids, stones, chilli powder and dangerous articles to be used in rioting as a part of the conspiracy," the chargesheet claimed.
However, the police quickly fall back on statements of five protected witnesses dubbed as "Delta, Gamma, Echo, Yankee, Smith and Sierra" to establish this specific meeting and the contents of what was discussed and what Umar had purportedly said. The chat groups attached by police do not show evidence of this meeting. Significantly, while the Special Cell has called Umar a "main conspirator" it has not named him as an accused in the chargesheet.
The chargesheet submitted by the police in the court last Wednesday named 15 people as accused under the stringent UAPA, all anti-CAA protesters. Umar was not among them. He had, however, in a statement recorded before his arrest said twenty to thirty seconds from my 17-minute speech were made viral, and it was claimed that he (Khalid) conspired and instigated people to come to the streets and riot. "Now that I have uploaded the entire 17 minute-long speech, in which I spoke about Gandhi's message of satya and ahimsa, not riots and violence," he said.