In jail for 2 yrs on basis of hearsay statement: Khalid
New Delhi, May 24: Former JNU student Umar Khalid, arrested in a UAPA case related to the alleged conspiracy behind the riots here in February 2020, contended before the Delhi high court that he has been in jail for the last two years based on a protected witness’ hearsay statement which has no corroboration.
“The prosecution really needs to make up its mind as to what is the case against me,” Khalid’s counsel submitted before a bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Rajnish Bhatnagar.
The bench was hearing Khalid’s plea challenging a trial court’s order which had, on March 24, dismissed his bail application in the case.
Khalid’s counsel said the statement of the protected witness was the only statement that has some material allegations against him but it was hearsay and lacked corroboration.
He said the charge sheet filed by the police in the matter was flowery and baseless.
The court listed the matter for hearing further arguments on Wednesday.
The high court had earlier questioned Khalid for using certain objectionable words against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his speech in Amravati on February 21, 2020.
Khalid was arrested on September 13, 2020, and has been in custody since then.
Khalid, Sharjeel Imam, and several others have been booked under the anti-terror law, Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), and provisions of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) in the case for allegedly being the “masterminds” of the February 2020 riots, which had left 53 people dead and over 700 injured.
The violence had erupted during the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC).
The trial court had dismissed the bail petitions by Khalid on March 24.
Khalid has argued in his bail plea before the high court that his speech, which forms the basis for the allegations against him, did not call for violence, was not contemporaneously uploaded on YouTube, was not widely circulated, and that the allegation of commission of the offence of Section 124A (sedition) of the IPC or any reaction in Delhi on account of the speech was “unfounded, unlikely, and more than remote.”
The Delhi police, represented by special public prosecutor Amit Prasad, has opposed the bail plea, saying the narratives sought to be created by Khalid cannot be looked into as his defence at this stage and the trial court refused to release him by a well-reasoned order which suffers from no illegality.
Earlier, while granting time to the Delhi police to respond to the bail plea, the high court had said that Khalid’s speech was obnoxious, prima facie not acceptable, and that certain statements in the speech were “offensive per se.”