Delhi HC issues notice on Sharjeel Imam’s plea against framing of charges in 2019 anti-CAA violence case

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Thursday issued notice to the Delhi Police on a plea filed by Sharjeel Imam against the trial court’s order, framing charges against the former JNU activist and terming him one of the kingpins of a larger conspiracy to incite violence during the 2019 anti-CAA protests.

A bench of Justice Sanjeev Narula was hearing Sharjeel Imam’s revision plea challenging the trial court’s order and seeking an interim stay on the impugned decision.

The Justice Narula-led Bench declined to pass any interim order without hearing the prosecution side and posted the matter for further hearing on April 24.

Earlier this month, the trial court had framed charges against Sharjeel Imam and other accused in the case, saying the former JNU activist was not only an instigator, but was also one of the kingpins of a larger conspiracy to incite violence during the 2019 anti-CAA protests.

Additional Sessions Judge Vishal Singh of the Saket Courts said that in order to provoke the Muslim community and to incite widespread violence against the implementation of CAA and NRC, accused Sharjeel Imam conducted public meetings, distributed inflammatory leaflets in areas of Munirka, Nizamuddin, Shaheen Bagh and Jamia Nagar, prepared a video of the inflammatory speech and uploaded it on social media to influence Muslim brotherhood.

The judge noted that Sharjeel Imam visited the Aligarh Muslim University and incited the students against the government over the implementation of the CAA and the NRC.

“He visited the area of Jamia Nagar on 13/12/2019 at around 02:00 PM, where he held a meeting with Jamia students and residents to instigate them to cause traffic jams on public roads in protest of CAA and NRC,” the trial court further noted.

It said that Sharjeel Imam, being a senior PhD student, craftily clothed his speech in which he avoided the mention of communities other than the Muslim community but the intended victims of ‘chakka jaam’ were members of communities other than the Muslim community.

“Why, otherwise, accused Sharjeel Imam incited only the members of the Muslim religion to disrupt the normal functioning of the society. [H]is speech was calculated to evoke anger and hatred, the natural consequence of which was a commission of widespread violence by members of the unlawful assembly on public roads. His speech was venomous and pitted one religion against another. It was, indeed, hate speech,” the court had said.

It added that the assembling of a huge mob and the mass-scale rioting committed by it were not a random or spontaneous happening and could not have been committed except in pursuance of a larger conspiracy entered into between the self-proclaimed leaders and initiators of the mob activity. Accused Sharjeel Imam is liable to be charged for an offence under Sections 109 IPC, read with Sections 120B, 153A, 143, 147, 148, 149, 186, 353, 332, 333, 308, 427, 435, 323 and 341, and Section 3/4 of the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, the court said.

The Special Public Prosecutor argued that, although, prima facie Sharjeel Imam’s speech sounded like the creation of a peaceful public movement against some government policy, it was in essence an invocation of feelings of hatred of the Muslim community against other communities in the name of legislation of a law by Union government which was unfair to Muslim community.

Sharjeel Imam and nearly a dozen people were reportedly involved in the alleged larger conspiracy linked to the Delhi riots of 2020, as per the Delhi Police. The riots broke out in the national capital in February 2020 as clashes between the anti-CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) and pro-CAA protesters took a violent turn. The mayhem saw more than 50 people lose their lives, besides leaving over 700 people injured.

IANS