DELHI RIOTS: REIMAGINING PROVOCATIONS
On September 13, a political slugfest erupted over reports claiming that the Delhi Police had named a number of political leaders and intellectuals—like CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, Swaraj Abhiyan leader Yogendra Yadav, economist and Jawaharlal Nehru University professor Jayati Ghosh, Delhi University professor Apoorvanand and documentary filmmaker Rahul Roy— as co-conspirators in a supplementary chargesheet relating to the riots in northeast Delhi this February. The Delhi Police denied the reports, saying that Yechury and these others had not been named as ‘accused’ but their names had come up in the “disclosure statements” of those accused in the case. This denial didn’t do much to deflect persistent criticism from civil society groups and public intellectuals that the riots investigations have been one-sided and motivated—and that the police has determinedly looked away from evidence pointing to other actors who played a pivotal role in inflaming passions that may have led to the communal violence. The AAP-ruled Delhi state government and a fact-finding report by the Delhi Minorities Commission also earlier accused the Delhi Police, which answers to the Union home ministry, of bias. However, in a response to a letter by former Mumbai police commissioner Julio Rebeiro seeking an impartial investigation, Delhi police commissioner S.N. Shrivastava said that the probe was guided by facts and evidence and not by reputation and personalities.
Even so, the courts have also ticked off the Delhi Police, while exhorting them to conduct an impartial investigation. In May, additional sessions judge Dharmender Rana, hearing an application for the judicial remand of a Jamia Millia Islamia student, observed
that the “investigation seemed to be targeted only towards one end”. On July 24, Rana said the Delhi Police was in a “state of inscrutable indolence” after being informed that the police had not yet examined the security camera footage from Maujpur and Jafrabad metro stations, the epicentres of the riot.
In the case of Yechury and others, the original chargesheet, filed by the Crime Branch in a Karkardooma court, is against Devangana Kalita and Natasha Narwal, members of a women students’ collective called Pinjra Tod, and Gulfisha Fatima, an MBA student of Jamia Millia Islamia. It relates to the violence at Jafrabad in February, where an anti-CAA sit-in protest was held before the riots began. While the Delhi High Court had earlier granted Kalita bail—the police had not produced any material proving that her speech instigated women from any particular community—all three are currently in jail because they also face charges under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) in a case filed by the Delhi Police Special Cell.
In its supplementary chargesheet naming Yechury and others, police cite the “disclosure statements” of Narwal and Kalita, alleging that they had been directed by Ghosh, Apoorvanand and Roy to protest in different parts of Delhi against the CAA and the NRC. Yechury and Yadav, police said, were named in Gulfisha’s disclosure statement, alleging they had taken part in anti-CAA demonstrations to “provoke and mobilise” crowds. The chargesheet claimed that these “provocative statements” upset people from “other communities”, who then counter-protested the anti-CAA agitations—which led to violence. The language of the chargesheets gives the impression that the provocation for the communal violence came from the anti-CAA protesters and the pro-CAA groups acted in retaliation.
On February 23, apparently provoked by the anti-CAA Jafrabad sit-in, the BJP’s Kapil Mishra issued a public ultimatum to the Delhi Police that he and his followers would take to the streets if anti-CAA protesters were not removed from protest sites. A day later, riots broke out. Curiously, Mishra, who even tweeted his inflammatory statements and videos, still remains outside the ambit of the investigation. On February 27, the Delhi high court, while directing the Delhi police to register FIRs against those who had made hate speeches and sparked off days of rioting in northeast Delhi, had played clips of speeches by Mishra, Union minister Anurag Thakur and BJP MP Parvesh Singh Verma, directing the police to take note. On July 14, the Delhi Police informed the high court that “no actionable evidence had surfaced yet indicating any role being played by” these political leaders in “instigating and/ or participating in the riots”.
Nonetheless, on September 14, the Delhi Police Special Cell questioned filmmakers Rahul Roy and Saba Dewan. Police sources claim to have found links between the two and a students’ outfit, and also with a WhatsApp group called the ‘Delhi Protests Support Group’. Professor Apoorvanand had also earlier been questioned over an alleged link with this group. Others mentioned in the chargesheet—Yechury, Yadav and Ghosh—have not yet been summoned and questioned. A person being named in a chargesheet ‘as an accused’ is a different matter from a person’s name ‘figuring in an accused’s statement’. While the law does not use the phrase ‘disclosure statements’, this term is used in the context of Section 27 of the Indian Evidence Act. Section 27 allows limited use of information an accused may disclose to the police while in custody as ‘evidence’. It states that when an unknown fact is discovered as a result of information given by an accused, it may be used as evidence. It is, however, up to the court to decide which part of a disclosure statement is admissible. Until then, investigating agencies are at liberty to use disclosure statements to pursue a probe as they deem fit. Yechury, while slamming the Delhi Police for its “illegitimate, illegal actions”, which were a “direct outcome of the politics [of] the BJP’s top leadership”, dared the officers handling the probe to arrest him. In an interview, he denied knowing or having ever met Gulfisha Fatima. Yadav, in a tweet, said that the supplementary chargesheet did not mention him or Yechury as a co-conspirator or an accused, alleging that the Delhi Police was trying to drag all anti-CAA protesters into one circle of conspirators. Amid the controversy over the supplementary chargesheet, the Special Cell arrested former JNU student Umar Khalid on September 13 for his alleged role in the riots. Khalid has already been charged earlier under the stringent UAPA in another case related to the riots. The communal clashes that took place in northeast Delhi in February left 53 people dead and around 200 injured. The Delhi Police claims that, so far, 1,575 people have been arrested, out of which 1,153 accused—571 Hindus and 582 Muslims—have been chargesheeted, with 250 chargesheets filed.
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath has come up with an inventive way to beat the problem of malnutrition. He recently issued instructions to district magistrates to provide one healthy cow free of cost to the families of malnourished children, along with Rs 900 a month for the cow’s fodder. The district officers have begun the process and hope to begin handing over the healthy cows in gaushalas across the state to families by the end of September. Since assuming power, Yogi has made concerted efforts to protect cows—a large-scale illegal slaughter house was shut down by the state and sarkari cowsheds—one for each district—have been constructed at a cost of Rs 1.15 crore. Yogi also likes to feed the 500 cows at the gaushala he set up with the Gokaknath temple in Gorakhpur whenever he visits. A gau rakshak, if ever there was one.