"This Is My Life Now": What Umar Khalid Told Partner After He Was Denied Bail
"This Is My Life Now": What Umar Khalid Told Partner After He Was Denied Bail
M.U.H
06/01/202635
Shortly after another door was closed to him after spending five years in jail, activist and former JNU student Umar Khalid remarked that being imprisoned is his life now and expressed happiness that five other people had been granted bail.
The Supreme Court on Monday denied bail to Khalid and fellow student activist Sharjeel Imam in the 2020 Delhi riots conspiracy case, stating it was satisfied there was enough material to indicate their involvement in the criminal conspiracy. It did, however, grant the relief to five others named in the case - activists Gulfisha Fatima, Meeran Haider, Shifa Ur Rehman, Mohd Saleem Khan, and Shadab Ahmed - stating that they were not on equal footing with Khalid and Imam.
"Those alleged to have conceived, directed, or steered unlawful activity or terrorist activity stand on a different legal footing from those whose alleged involvement is confined to facilitation or participation at a different level. To disregard such distinctions would itself result in arbitrariness," the bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and NV Anjaria said.
Khalid's partner Banojyotsna Lahiri posted on X that when she spoke to Khalid after the court verdict, she told him she would go to meet him at the Tihar Jail, where he is being held, on Tuesday.
"Good good, aa jaana. Ab yahi zindagi hai (Good, come. This is my life now)," he responded.
Lahiri also recalled that Khalid expressed joy that the others had got bail.
"I am really happy for the others, who got bail! So relieved," she quoted him as saying.
Imam was arrested on January 28, 2020, for speeches made during the anti-CAA protests and charged in the conspiracy case in August that year. Khalid was arrested on September 13, 2020. They were both charged under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act or UAPA.
The riots had broken out in northeast Delhi on February 24, 2020, during protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC), leaving more than 50 people dead. They had coincided with the visit of US President Donald Trump to India.
Denying bail to Imam and Khalid, the bench said a delay in trial does not operate as a "trump card" which automatically displaces statutory safeguards.
"The Constitution guarantees personal liberty, but it does not conceive liberty as an isolated or absolute entitlement, detached from the security of the society in which it operates.. The sovereignty, integrity, and security of the nation, as well as the preservation of public order, are not abstract concerns, rather they are constitutional values which Parliament is entitled to protect through law," the court observed.
It said Khalid and Imam can file fresh bail applications after protected witnesses are examined, or a year later.
Criticism
While the Delhi Police has said Khalid and Imam launched a well-orchestrated "pan-India" conspiracy aiming at "regime change", Khalid had told a court last year that he had spent five years in custody based on a "joke of an FIR".
"You first decide 'isko pakadna hai' (this person has to be caught)... then reverse engineering takes place... There are no linkages (with the actual offences) and we are far away from recovery," his lawyer had said.
Last week, a group of American lawmakers had written to Indian Ambassador Vinay Kwatra and raised concern about Khalid's detention.
"With respect for India's democratic institutions and its role as a key partner of the US, we request that your Government share the steps being taken to ensure that the judicial proceedings against Khalid and those of his co-accused who remain in detention comport with international standards," the lawmakers, including US Representatives Jim McGovern and Jamie Raskin, said in the letter.
Rights groups like Amnesty International have also criticised the prolonged incarceration of the activists.
