CAA RIOTS: PROSECUTION WITH PREJUDICE?
On June 23, Safoora Zargar, 27, a research scholar at Jamia Millia Islamia University, finally secured bail after 70odd days of incarceration in Tihar Jail for her alleged role as ‘key conspirator’ in the Delhi riots conspiracy case being investigated by the Delhi Police Special Cell. Zargar was vocal and visible during the anti-CAA (Citizenship Amendment Bill) protests that swept Delhi— with echoes all over India—after the controversial Act came into existence in December 2019.
Zargar was more than three months pregnant when Delhi Police arrested her, first on April 10, on allegations of blocking a road and obstructing traffic. After securing a bail in that case, she was arrested again on April 13, this time under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), which makes it well-nigh impossible for the accused to get bail. Many others like scholars Asif Iqbal, Devangana Kalita, Natasha Narwal and Meeran Haider have also been arrested and remain in custody, facing similar allegations under UAPA.
As of June 30, the police had registered 753 FIRs in the riots cases. The chargesheets in these cases—of which there were 140 as on June 29 (SIT: 33; local police: 107)—make some serious allegations. The Special Cell FIR includes charges of ‘terrorism’ and ‘conspiracy to commit terrorism’. The police/ SIT chargesheets even allege that the communal riots in Delhi between February 24 and 26 were a planned conspiracy ‘to defame the country in the international arena’.
The conspiracy theory rests on the coincidence that these riots took place during the India visit of US president Donald Trump. But what it disingenuously elides is that the riots followed incendiary sloganeering by the likes of Kapil Mishra of the ruling BJP, who (in)famously issued a public ultimatum to the police a day prior, on February 23, to clear the roads in a certain part of northeast Delhi of anti-CAA protesters—or else.
Leading up to these riots, other BJP politicians too made public speeches that were open, public incitements to violence against anti-CAA protesters, and even Muslims at large. MP Parvesh Verma painted the protesters as potential rapists and killers, Union minister and MP Anurag Thakur led a crowd that chanted “Desh ke gaddaron ko, goli maaro saalon ko (Shoot these traitors of the country)”. All this happened in full public view and there is accessible video evidence. But not a single FIR has been filed against these politicians, even after a division bench of the Delhi High Court reiterated the law and expressed its anguish over the police failure to do so.
For such inflammatory speeches and slogans, the law mandates the registration of an FIR, and the Supreme Court has in the past directed that action be taken against police officers who fail to do so. For Verma and Thakur, the police took the stand in court that they had committed “no cognisable offence”. On June 26, the Delhi Police even tweeted an attempted rebuttal of a media report, dismissing charges that they had failed to proceed against Kapil Mishra despite evidence in the form of video recordings, written complaints and oral testimonies.
What makes the police action even more questionable is that most of the arrests in the riots cases came in the midst of a lockdown following the Covid outbreak. The accompanying restrictions on court access and legal remedies, especially for those without means, made it that much harder for the accused to appeal or legally represent their cases. Access to information on these cases has also suffered with the suspension of regular functioning of the courts, handing the police a practical monopoly on official information.
In UAPA investigations and prosecutions, the police have sweeping powers, for instance, to arrest persons or search and seize property. Being an ‘anti-terror’ law, these prosecutions are as stringent as they come, and the guilt of the accused is presumed under law. Provisions for lengthy detentions are built in, and the bar for securing bail is notoriously high. Stacking the legal odds against the accused in this manner, the process itself becomes the punishment in these cases.
And yet, conviction rates are sometimes as low as 14.5 per cent (in 2015), though case pendency rates at the national level are staggeringly high at around 95 per cent, according to data published by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). Even if an accused is eventually acquitted in such a case, the process exacts a heavy price— years, even decades, lost in jail. This feature makes the law ripe for misuse by the government against persons it finds inconvenient. Lately, Safoora Zargar became the first accused facing UAPA charges to get bail, and only because of the extraordinary circumstance of her advanced-stage pregnancy.
A similar pattern was witnessed in cases related to the Bhima-Koregaon violence in rural Pune in 2018. One of the persons accused of provoking the violence, Sambhaji Bhide, a vocal admirer of the prime minister and his party, was never arrested. Co-conspirator Milind Ekbote spent a month in jail before getting bail. And a whole week after the incident, another FIR was registered by Pune police, alleging a conspiracy that led to the violence. This bizarrely morphed into an alleged conspiracy to assassinate the prime minister. These allegations then became the narrative basis for the arrest of 10 prominent lawyers, activists and academics, who work with some of the most oppressed communities in India and happen to be vocal critics of the government. Some of them have now spent two years in jail as undertrials and face similar terror and conspiracy charges under the same UAPA.
The police investigations in these cases raise uncomfortable questions. Has the law been applied equally to all, or has innocence/ guilt been presumed on the basis of political allegiance? Is the police pursuing only one line of investigation, and ignoring allegations and evidence against other persons? At one point, the court hearing this case even remarked that the investigation by the Delhi Police “...seems to be targeted only towards one end”.
THE POLICE INVESTIGATIONS IN THESE CASES RAISE UNCOMFORTABLE QUESTIONS. ARE THE AUTHORITIES PURSUING ONLY ONE LINE OF INVESTIGATION, AND IGNORING ALLEGATIONS AND EVIDENCE AGAINST OTHERS?