Khalid speech inciting, unacceptable: HC
NEW DELHI: The Delhi high court on Friday observed that one of the speeches made by former Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student leader Umar Khalid in Amravati during the agitation against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, or CAA, was “obnoxious” and “unacceptable”, and could “incite” people.
The speech is part of charge sheets filed by the Delhi Police over the last two years against Khalid and several others in connection to the main conspiracy case of the north-east Delhi riots in February 2020.
A bench of justices Siddharth Mridul and Rajnish Bhatnagar, while seeking the police’s response on Khalid’s bail plea, said that it was not for the first time that such statements were made. “This is offensive, obnoxious. Don’t you think? These expressions being used, don’t you think they incite people? You say things like ‘aapke purvaj angrezon ki dalali kar rahe the’ (your ancestors were working in cahoots with the British), you don’t think it is offensive? It is offensive per se. This is not the first time that you said so in this speech. You said this at least five times. It is almost as if we distinctly get the impression that it was only one particular community that fought for India’s Independence,” the court said to his lawyers. The court also questioned whether such speeches foment religious differences between groups, and whether Mahatama Gandhi, the father of the nation, would have ever made such remarks. “Don’t you think it foments religious ferment between groups? Did Gandhiji ever employ this language? Did Shaheed Bhagat Singh ever employ such language, even against the English? Did he? Is this what Gandhiji taught us that we can use intemperate language about people and their purvaj (ancestors). We have no qualms about permitting free speech but what are you saying?” the court asked.