New Delhi: A Delhi court Monday sent former JNU student leader Umar Khalid to police custody for 10 days. Umar Khalid has been arrested under the stringent anti-terror law Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. His case is related to the communal violence in northeast Delhi in February.
Khalid was produced before Additional Sessions Judge Amitabh Rawat through video conferencing. Police had sought his custody for 10 days. They said they wanted to confront him with documents running into 11 lakh pages.
Khalid was arrested Sunday night in the case. His counsel opposed the remand application saying he was not in Delhi during February 23-26. Those were the days when the riots took place.
In the FIR, police have claimed that the communal violence was a ‘premeditated conspiracy’. It was allegedly hatched by Khalid and two others.
Khalid has also been booked for the offences of sedition, murder, attempt to murder and promoting enmity between different groups.
Khalid had allegedly given provocative speeches at two different places. He had appealed to the citizens to come out on streets and block the roads during the visit of US President Donald Trump. He had said that it would be the ideal propaganda at international level about how minorities in India are being tortured, the FIR alleged.
In this conspiracy, firearms, petrol bombs, acid bottles and stones were collected at numerous homes, FIR claimed. Co-accused Danish was allegedly given the responsibility to gather people from two different places to take part in the riots, police alleged.
Women and children were made to block the roads under the Jafrabad metro station February 23. This was done to create tension among people in the neighbourhood, the FIR said.
Communal clashes had broken out February 24 in northeast Delhi after violence between citizenship law supporters and protesters. The clashes left at least 53 people dead and around 200 injured.
