Charge sheet against Tahir Hussain in Delhi riots
nNEW DELHI: Delhi Police on Tuesday filed two charge sheets in connection with two separate cases registered during the communal rioting that rocked the city’s north-east in February.
In one of the charge sheets, the police named suspended Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) councillor Tahir Hussain, alleging that he played a “pivotal role” during the riots. The police said Hussain met former Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student Umar Khalid, who, the department claimed, was part of a larger group organizing the riots and protests in the city.
At least 53 people were killed and around 400 injured n the violence that started as clashes between protestors for and against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act .
While Hussain has been charged under sections dealing with rioting, criminal conspiracy, dacoity, promoting religious enmity and under the Arms Act, the police filed a separate charge sheet against 12 people, including two activists of the women’s group Pinjra Tod. Crime branch officers associated with the probe said that none of the 12 arrested persons are registered members of the Jamia Coordination Committee but the two Pinjra Tod activists were incharge of a subgroup the committe had formed for Jafarabad protest site. None of the 12 have got bail in the case.
The 12 were charged under sections dealing with murder, attempt to murder and criminal conspiracy. The police said they were also part of a larger conspiracy and were be connected to the India Against Hate group and Umar Khalid. Neither Khalid nor his counsel Trideep Pais offered a comment despite repeated phone calls and text messages.
Pinjra Tod, in a statement on social media on May 28, after the arrest of its activists, denied police allegations and called the arrests a witchhunt against students. On Tuesday, it did not comment on grounds that the case is sub judice.
In connection with the violence outside Hussain’s house, the police said it charged 15 people. Hussain had got his licensed pistol released from a police station a day before the riots broke out, the police said.the pistol and its licence were deposited in the police station in January because of the Delhi assembly elections. Police saidthat Hussain purchased 100 cartridges, but only 64 live cartridges and 22 empty cartridges were recovered. He was unable to give them a satisfactory answer regarding the remaining ones. Before Hussain’s arrest, when videos of people throwing stones and hurling Molotov cocktails( purportedly from the terrace of Hussain’s house) surfaced on social media, the suspended AAP councillor denied allegations of his involvement and said he was a victim .
Police claimed that Hussain had taken around ₹1.10 crore from Khalid Saifi, part of the larger group of persons organising the riots and protests, and transferred around ₹1.10 crore to fake companies in January. They said that Hussain distributed the money to anti –CAA protesters and several others and told his supporters to get ready.
Reacting to the charges against Hussain, his lawyer Javed Ali said that his client has been “falsely implicated,” which was evident from the fact that nothing had been recovered from him during the time he was in police custody or later on. He said certain things had been planted and manipulated against him.
In the second charge sheet against the 12 persons, including Pinjra Tod members Devangana Kalita and Natasha Narwal, police said they recovered a Whatsapp message from the phone of one of the accused which listed the steps the women should take if a riot broke out.