2020 Delhi riots: In jail for two years on basis of hearsay statement of witness, says Khalid to HC

Former JNU student Umar Khalid arrested in a UAPA case related to the alleged conspiracy behind the riots here in February 2020 Tuesday 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 corroborationThe prosecution really needs to make up its mind as to what is the case against me Khalids counsel submitted before a bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Rajnish BhatnagarThe bench was hearing Khalids plea challenging a trial courts order which had on March 24 dismissed his bail application in the caseI have to bear the brunt of two years of imprisonment because you have a statement the counsel saidKhalids counsel said the statement of protected witness was the only statement that has some material allegations against him but it was hearsay and lacked corroborationThe counsel read the statement of the witness and said this is a case where a statement is made in order to implicate me It does not have any relation to violence in DelhiThis man on December 22 2019 calls for a chakka jam road blockade as his own admission and then gives an exculpatory statement and seeks to implicate me so that his sins are washed away when there is no evidence of my presence The entire preface of this matter is to frame people under UAPA solely by messages he saidBasically UAPA is now this you just get a person to make a statement and that is it That is the difficulty in which I have been arraigned in this matter he arguedHe said the charge sheet filed by the police in the matter was flowery and baselessThe court listed the matter for hearing further arguments on WednesdayKhalids counsel had earlier contended that the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act were against an unjust law and it was in no way an act against the Sovereign and that several of the acts alleged or incidents cited against him by the police were not even qualifying as terror and the protestors were not perpetuating violence as contemplated under the UAPAThe high court had earlier questioned Khalid for using certain objectionable words against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his speech in Amravati on February 21 2020Khalid was arrested on September 13 2020 and has been in custody since thenKhalid Sharjeel Imam and several others have been booked under the antiterror law Unlawful Activities Prevention Act UAPA and provisions of the Indian Penal Code in the case for allegedly being the masterminds of the February 2020 riots which had left 53 people dead and over 700 injuredThe violence had erupted during the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of CitizensThe trial court had dismissed the bail petitions by Khalid on March 24Khalid 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 IPC or any reaction in Delhi on account of the speech was unfounded unlikely and more than remoteThe 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 wellreasoned order which suffers from no illegalityEarlier while granting time to the Delhi Police to respond to the bail plea the high court had said that Khalids speech was obnoxious prima facie not acceptable and that certain statements in the speech were offensive per seBesides Khalid activist Khalid Saifi JNU students Natasha Narwal and Devangana Kalita Jamia Coordination Committee members Safoora Zargar former AAP councillor Tahir Hussain and several others have also been booked under the stringent law in the caseThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever