Delhi riots case: Why won’t India release Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam?

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New Delhi, India – India’s Supreme Court has granted bail to five Muslim students and activists in prison for more than five years in connection with the 2020 religious riots in the capital, New Delhi.

But the top court denied bail to two high-profile scholars – Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam – who will remain in the high-security Tihar jail waiting for their trials to start.

What is the case about?

Back in 2020, the Modi government changed the citizenship law to expedite citizenship for persecuted Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan.

Muslims across India opposed their exclusion and launched protests, with a women-led sit-in in New Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh becoming the epicentre of India’s biggest protests in decades.

Amid anti-Muslim rhetoric spearheaded by senior leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Hindu right-wing mobs attacked peaceful sit-ins in the eastern part of Delhi, triggering a deadly riot. More than 50 people, most of them Muslims, were killed in the worst violence in Delhi since the anti-Sikh riots of 1984.

In response, the police filed 758 criminal cases for investigation and arrested more than 2,000 people. The Delhi Police, accused of bias against Muslims, blamed peaceful protest leaders, many of them young Muslim activists, of hatching a conspiracy to create religious tensions and to topple the elected government – a claim rubbished by legal and rights experts. At least 18 student leaders and activists were arrested in a case that came to be known as the “main conspiracy case”.

The students and activists were charged under an “anti-terror” law called the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, which makes it virtually impossible to secure bail. This law allows authorities to declare individuals “terrorists” and detain them without trial for months, sometimes years.

India’s police have been accused of increasingly using “anti-terror” laws against marginalised people, including Muslims.

Who are the accused?

Of the 18 students and activists arrested in the conspiracy case, six were released on bail over the years.

Today, the Supreme Court is deciding on the bail of seven of the defendants. Here are their brief profiles:

Umar Khalid: A former research scholar at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), who submitted a PhD thesis titled “Contesting claims and contingencies of the rule on Adivasis of Jharkhand” in 2018. He is a former leader of the student body the Democratic Students’ Union (DSU) and a founding member of the campaign “United Against Hate”.

Sharjeel Imam: A PhD research scholar at JNU in the Centre for Historical Studies. He graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, one of India’s most reputable engineering colleges, and previously worked as a software engineer before returning to academics.

Meeran Haider: A PhD research scholar at the Centre for Management Studies at Jamia Millia Islamia.

Gulfisha Fatima: An MBA graduate engaged in community work and activism. At the time of the protests, she was preparing to become a college lecturer.

Shifa ur-Rehman: A businessman and the president of the Alumni Association of Jamia Millia Islamia. He contested the Delhi assembly polls in 2024 from jail, but lost.

Shadab Ahmed: A professional with a bachelor’s degree in computer applications (BCA). At the time of the protests, Ahmed was volunteering at a protest site in Delhi.

Saleem Khan: A businessman involved in the export industry. At the time of his arrest, he was managing his business and was alleged by police to have been an organiser and provider of food for a protest site.

Why is this case so controversial in India?

The conspiracy case – and the defendants charged – have been referred by civil society as a litmus test for the judiciary itself, since New Delhi’s sharp turn towards ultra-nationalism and authoritarianism under Prime Minister Modi.

Political analysts told Al Jazeera that the case, amid apparently endless hearing dates, changing benches in courts, and administrative delays, has split open the “dual nature” of Indian institutions that are biased against Muslims.

Asim Ali, a political commentator in New Delhi, told Al Jazeera that after the citizenship protests, the Modi government had a reckoning. “This mobilisation cannot happen again, ever,” he said.

“That protest was a statement by India’s Muslim community that we are reclaiming our citizenship rights – and you cannot just snatch that,” Ali noted. “But the government has shown that only they reserve the right to define who can be a citizen – and they defined it by force.”

However, the top court’s denial of bail to Khalid and Imam, the more well-known students among the detainees, Ali said, “is like categorising one section of the population as internal enemies or suspects, treating them with another class of laws, or rather in a legal shadow”.

Rasheed Kidwai, a political analyst, noted that Indian courts have regularly granted bail to the accused, including hardcore criminals and rapists. “Denial [of bail to Khalid and Imam] begs a question: Is the court being influenced by a political narrative? Because otherwise, there is no reason why these two were not granted bail,” he said.

For more than a billion Indians to continue having faith in the judiciary, Kidwai said, there needs to be “consistency of law that is equal for all”. And that doesn’t seem to be the case involving Muslim defendants, he noted.

Why will Khalid and Imam stay imprisoned?

Pronouncing its order on Monday morning at the top court in New Delhi, the bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and NV Anjaria said they were not convinced that the prolonged pre-trial detention of Khalid and Imam and the delay in trial do not operate as a “trump card”.

The court noted that the duo was not on equal footing in the hierarchy of the alleged conspiracy as others who were granted bail. The bench said it found a prima facie case under the “anti-terror” law, stating the duo held a “central and formative role” in the conspiracy and can reapply for bail after one year.

“I feel that these judges have been unduly influenced by government pressure. And it was enormous government pressure not to release [Khalid and Imam],” said Prashant Bhushan, a senior advocate at the Supreme Court and a rights campaigner.

Now, the student activists are “basically in a deadlock”, Bhushan said, adding, “This case shows two things: the Modi government is willing to misuse anti-terror law and the investigative agencies; secondly, that courts are also bowing down to the dictates of the government.”

“The charges are serious, but there is no real substance behind those charges,” said Bhushan, who has reviewed the case details.

“India is no longer a democracy under the Modi regime,” he said.

What has been the case’s impact on India?

Since the protests against the citizenship law and the crackdown that followed, political observers and leaders say that student politics have been outlawed by design and fear.

Natasha Narwal, an activist and researcher who spent over a year in jail in the same case, told Al Jazeera that due to the government crackdown, “any protest that presents a challenge to the regime and its policies is easily criminalised”.

“There is increased surveillance in the universities, scrutiny on every little activity – from organising a seminar, a talk, a movie screening, or any kind of gathering,” Narwhal said.

“If not criminal cases, then students keep getting show cause notices and face all kinds of disciplinary actions.”

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