DELHI COURT REJECTS BAIL PLEA OF UMAR KHALID, IN JAIL FOR OVER 3 YEARS

Tue 28 May 2024:

A Karkardooma Court judge in Delhi rejected scholar and activist Umar Khalid’s bail plea today, May 28. Khalid has been jailed since September 2020 in connection with what Delhi police claims is the Delhi riots’ ‘conspiracy’ case.

Khalid is an undertrial.

Additional Sessions Judge Sameer Bajpai of the court dismissed the former Jawaharlal Nehru University academic’s plea, Bar and Bench has reported.

On February 14, Khalid had withdrawn his plea from the Supreme Court after it had been adjourned 14 times, citing a change in circumstances.

Khalid’s father S.Q.R. Ilyas, while speaking to The Wire, had cited the long adjournments in the bail plea.

Khalid was charged with criminal conspiracy, rioting, unlawful assembly and several other offences under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).

After eight months of hearings, in March 2022, a Delhi sessions court denied him bail. Khalid appealed this decision in the Delhi high court, which in October of that year rejected his bail plea.

In December 2022 the Karkardooma court acquitted Khalid in a ‘stone pelting’ case related to the Delhi riots, but continued to detain him in connection with the ‘larger conspiracy’ around the riots. On December 12 of that year, he was granted interim bail.

His stay in jail has been regularly cited across India and globally as one of the instances of the abuse of power in punishing government critics, especially those belonging to minority communities.

-The Wire

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