New Delhi: Reacting to the Supreme Court’s denial of bail to former Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) scholar Umar Khalid and activist Sharjeel Imam, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said both had been “receiving sympathy” from the Congress, its supporters and from abroad, and that the top court ruling underlined judicial freedom.
The top court, while denying bail to the duo in the 2020 Delhi riots conspiracy case, said a prima facie case under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) was made out.
The bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and N.V. Anjaria, while pronouncing the operative part of the judgment, granted bail with 12 conditions to Gulfisha Fatima, Meeran Haider, Shifa ur Rehman, Mohammad Saleem Khan and Shadab Ahmed.
Senior BJP leader and the party’s IT cell chief Amit Malviya said in a post on X that the SC’s decision was an important reaffirmation of “judicial independence”.
“The court has found, prima facie, that material exists indicating their involvement in a criminal conspiracy under the UAPA. At the same time, it granted bail to five other accused, but only under stringent conditions, clearly underscoring that culpability must be assessed on a case-by-case basis. In doing so, the court accepted the Delhi Police’s argument that all accused cannot be treated as standing on the same footing,” he wrote.
Malviya further termed the ruling a “lesson” for the Opposition that seeking foreign intervention in India’s internal matters would be counterproductive. “This ruling should send an unambiguous message to the cabal of urban Naxals and Islamist sympathisers who believed that pressure tactics, whether through letters from an upstart mayor or foreign legislators, could sway India’s judicial process. For the Opposition, the lesson is even clearer: seeking foreign intervention in India’s internal matters is not only counterproductive but steadily erodes whatever credibility they may still possess,” he said.
BJP national spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla claimed that the Congress ecosystem “glorified Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam and projected them as lost innocent youth”.
“The ‘tukde tukde’ gang is pained by the decision. Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam were not merely receiving sympathy from the Congress and its ecosystem, but also letters from abroad. Not only has the bail been rejected, but the Supreme Court has also observed that the crimes committed, including charges of terrorism and burning Delhi, prima facie appear valid,” he told the media.
Senior BJP leader and national general secretary Tarun Chugh too welcomed the court’s decision and said the duo was “conspiring against India”.
Khalid and Imam have been in pre-trial detention for over five years under the UAPA in connection with the conspiracy case. Khalid was last month granted 14 days’ interim bail to attend his sister’s wedding, after which he returned to Tihar jail on 29 December.
Earlier, eight US lawmakers had termed the investigation into the allegations against Khalid under India’s anti-terrorism law as “dubious”, urging for his bail in a letter to Indian Ambassador to the US, Vinay Kwatra. At the same time, Zohran Mamdani, mayor of New York City, shared a note with Khalid’s parents during their visit to the US last month.
In his handwritten note, shared on X, Mamdani had said he often thinks of the jailed activist’s words on bitterness and the importance of not letting it consume the self.
Ravi Shankar Prasad, senior BJP leader and MP, while speaking to the media said: “As far as I have seen and heard, the Supreme Court examined all the evidence of the conspiracy carefully and concluded that their case is not worthy of bail because they were the main perpetrators…”
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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