New Delhi: The Swaraj Abhiyan leader Yogendra Yadav had “instructed” Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) PhD student, Sharjeel Imam, to mobilise students of Jamia Millia Islamia, Aligarh Muslim University and Delhi University for a “chakka jam” to protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act, the Delhi Police has claimed in its supplementary chargesheet filed in connection with the Northeast riots.
In the over 900-page document filed before additional sessions judge Amitabh Rawat last Sunday, the Delhi Police’s Special Cell has claimed that indoctrination of youths for chakka jam was part of a pre-planned conspiracy hatched for the riots.
It alleges that Yadav, Imam and former JNU student leader Umar Khalid decided to use social media for the mobilisation.
Imam and principal conspirators, the chargesheet claims, had worked on the concept of “chakka jam,” which later on escalated to “engineered violent riots.”
Both Imam and Khalid are in judicial custody.
The chargesheet also states that Khalid was trying to match up to the likes of Yadav in the “ultra-left ideological space”.
Khalid, it alleges, was at the “convergence point of the twin lines of Pan-Islamic and Ultra-left anarchism” – which Delhi Police has described as two violent strains of human thoughts that “nurtured and propagated the common conspiracy aimed at violent subjugation of the government established by law.”
Delhi Police has further stated that its investigation is ongoing to “bring to light the roles played by the top minds of these two violent strains of human thoughts for their role in this common conspiracy”.
If the police are to be believed, the “criminal conspiracy” is continuing. Police claim it has suffered a setback with arrest of the accused in the case but is “neither aborted nor abandoned and shall be accounted for and further unearthed in the continuing investigation”.
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The riots
Over 700 cases registered in the aftermath of the communal riots in February, which saw 53 persons dead, were broadly divided into three categories for the purpose of investigation.
Simple cases of rioting and public damage were dealt by the local police for investigation. The Delhi Police Crime Branch oversaw probe of those cases where attempt to murder and murder took place, whereas the force’s Special Cell was tasked with unearthing the larger conspiracy behind the communal riots.
The supplementary chargesheet is the second investigation report to be filed in this case. The first one in September was against 14 people, including suspended AAP councillor Tahir Hussain.
The supplementary chargesheet invokes four non-bailable sections 13, 16, 17 and 18 of the stringent anti-terror law, Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), which means the accused will be tried for unlawful and terrorist activity.
Additionally, 26 provisions under the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including murder and sedition, have been added to the chargesheet. Apart from Imam and Khalid, the Delhi Police have also named a sim-card dealer Faizan Khan as an accused. He was granted bail much before the police submitted their chargesheet.
Khalid ‘introduced’ Imam to Yadav
According to the chargesheet, Imam had revealed his intention to join an anti-CAA protest at Jantar Mantar led by Khalid’s United Against Hate (UAH) on 7 December.
It was here, the Delhi Police claim, that Khalid introduced Imam to Yadav.
“Sharjeel Imam was on an earlier occasion instructed by Umar Khalid to form a group of like-minded Muslims of JNU, Jamia, AMU and DU,” the chargesheet claims. “Khalid had already explained to him the concept of chakka jam as also stated by the witness. Yadav and Umar Khalid also instructed him to mobilise the students of JMI, AMU and DU.”
It was in this meeting, the police allege, that the three agreed to use “social media for large-scale indoctrination and mobilisation of youths for chakka jam as a protest against CAB” and start protest sites at various masjids.
The chargesheet further goes on to say that “in pursuance and furtherance of common conspiracy, as decided and agreed by Umar Khalid, Yogender Yadav and Sharjeel Imam, to involve the students of JMI, AMU and DU, besides JNU, in anti-CAA protest on a large scale for chakka Jam, Sharjeel imam contacted Arshad Warsi (from students of JMI) for the same purpose”.
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‘The detonator had done his job well’
The protests at Jamia – on 13 and 15 December – that ended in clashes between police and protestors were meant to “paralyse, destabilise and disintegrate Delhi by undertaking unlawful activity”, the chargesheet claims.
The 13 December protest, it said, was the first in a series of “pre-planned violent Acts of violence by the protestors against CAA and the State”.
In pursuance and furtherance of the common conspiracy the first protest site at Shaheen Bagh was based on the “chakka jam” model, the chargesheet states.
The police have included a photograph of a meeting that took place on 8 December between Imam, Khalid, Yadav and others in a basement in south Delhi. It was decided in this meeting that Imam will mobilise and lead students of various universities and colleges in and around Delhi.
“It is no wonder then that the dawn of new year saw Sharjeel Imam donning new clothes and embarking on a journey across many states which saw registration of six FIRs against him, primarily for sedition and inciting communal hatred and establishing the name of Sharjeel Imam,” reads the chargesheet in the section titled as “New Year: New Role: The detonator had done his job well.”
Khalid forging alliances with ultra-left sympathisers
The chargesheet also gives instances of meetings and joint protests in which both Khalid and Yadav participated.
Yadav was part of Khalid’s UAH protest call at India Gate in early December where he also met Imam, the police have claimed.
“It was also decided and agreed by the above trio that awareness campaigns should be launched in Muslim majority areas and all out efforts should be made to forge alliances with like-minded Muslim parties/organisation so that synchronisation and synergy is achieved for the above stated objective of chakka jam,” the chargesheet states.
Khalid’s UAH, Yadav’s Swaraj Abhiyan and like-minded left parties had even promised support to Imam in his efforts to mobilise students for chakka-jam, the police have alleged.
UAH and Swaraj Abhiyan also organised a march on 19 December near Red Fort where Yadav and Khalid were detained.
At another protest held on 24 December at Jantar Mantar, Yadav and Khalid gave speeches. Here, in “pursuance and furtherance of common conspiracy” it was decided between Yadav and other members to call a meeting of all organisations who are anti-CAA, the police said.
The chargesheet has referred to clashes that took place at Jamia and some parts of northeast Delhi between 13 and 20 December to say that these were precursor riots that did not generate nationwide traction. This “half-baked success and failures” made the “key conspirators” masked the remaining protests with a “secular façade”.
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