India Tomorrow
NEW DELHI, JUNE 21— After young faces of anti-CAA movement like Meeran Haider, Khalid Saifi and Safoora Zargar, now eminent rights activists Yogendra Yadav and Harsh Mander, and businessman D S Bindra, who had organized langer for people at the Shaheen Bagh protest, have also been mentioned in the chargesheets related to the February violence of the northeast Delhi.
Swaraj India president Yadav, Bindra and AISA leader Kanwalpreet Kaur have been mentioned by the Delhi Police in the chargesheet related to the murder of head constable Rattan Lal.
According to The Indian Express, the chargesheet said: “links of the organisers of the (Chand Bagh) protest site with the likes of Bindra (AIMIM), Kaur (AISA), Devangana Kalita (Pinjra Tod), Safoora, Yogendra Yadav, etc itself indicates a hidden agenda behind the violence”.
Last week, human rights activist and former IAS of Gujarat cadre, Mander was named in another chargesheet related to the three-day long (Feb 24-26) violence in which 53 people were killed and several hundreds wounded. The chargesheet has reportedly mentioned a speech that Mander delivered at an anti-CAA protest site near Jamia Millia Islamia.
However, none of the four – Yadav, Mander, Bindra and Kaur – have been made accused for any particular incident during the riot.
Besides Kalita (JNU) and Safoora (Jamia Millia), Saifi and Meeran (Jamia Millia) and many others have already been arrested and are in jail. All four have been booked under the stringent anti-terror law Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).
Soon after the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) was passed by the Parliament on December 11 last year, protest demonstrations had erupted in several parts of the country. People were demanding withdrawal of CAA and central government’s move to conduct nationwide exercise for updation of National Population Register (NPR) and National Register of Citizens (NRC).
Round-the-clock protests were held in different parts of Delhi including Shaheen Bagh, Jamia Millia, Khajuri Khas and Mustafabad. Most of them continued peacefully despite some disruptive incidents like shooting near the protest sites of Jamia Millia and Shaheen Bagh. In both shooting incidents days before the Delhi violence, two armed young men with right-wing affiliation were held by the protesters and handed over to the police.
During the Coronavirus-driven lockdown, imposed by the central government on March 24, over a dozen people related to the anti-CAA protests were picked in Delhi, interrogated and arrested under UAPA with riot conspiracy charges. Muslim leaders have termed these arrests as “witch-hunt.”
Last week, over 200 academicians, intellectuals and activists expressed solidarity with Harsh Mander. They charged that Police have mentioned Mander “to concoct a ‘chronology’ and create a false narrative about the Delhi riots.”
