Five years ago, the Indian capital saw intense riots in the wake of protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. Of the 53 people killed, more than two-thirds were Muslim. As part of this special series, Delhi 2020, Scroll looks back at the violence and how the Modi government used it to tar the very idea of peaceful protest.
Were the Delhi riots of 2020 incited by an assortment of students, activists and local politicians as part of a premeditated plot to destabilise the city?
That is what the Delhi Police has claimed. It has told the courts that its investigation into the riots has thrown up evidence of a sprawling “larger conspiracy” case, which it has presented in five voluminous chargesheets.
An examination of the five chargesheets spanning over 30,000 pages and interviews with eight defence lawyers reveal a troubling picture. Gaps in evidence have been filled with questionable witness statements, protests been criminalised and individuals implicated on the basis of tenuous evidence.
The communal riots erupted in North East Delhi on February 24, 2020, the result of clashes between the supporters of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and those opposing it. The Citizenship (Amendment) Act provided a way for undocumented migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan to gain Indian citizenship – as long as they were not Muslim. Passed in December 2019, the act provoked protests across India.
Some alleged that the Delhi riots had been triggered by inflammatory speeches by the leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party against those protesting against the act. In an order on Feburary 26, 2020, a Delhi High Court judge had noted that remarks of four BJP leaders – Anurag Thakur, Kapil Mishra, Parvesh Verma and Abhay Verma – met the Indian Penal Code’s definition of hate speech.
However, the Delhi police instead booked 20 leaders and participants of the anti-CAA movement under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. They have been accused of orchestrating the riots as the culmination of a plan they had created over several months. Eighteen of them were arrested by the police through 2020. Two are absconding. Five years after the riots, 12 of them – all Muslim – continue to languish in prison, with the trial yet to even begin.
Scroll’s analysis shows that a predetermined narrative runs through the chargesheets, rarely reflecting the facts on the ground. The prosecution’s case seems to be based on fragile foundations, with little direct evidence, dangerously blurring the lines between legitimate protest and terrorism.
Prosecution’s case
The conspiracy case rests on the prosecution’s claim that 20 individuals, under the guise of organising protests against the Citizenship Act, devised a deep-rooted conspiracy which had four stages.
The first phase, according to the chargesheets. involved the formation of several WhatsApp groups to instigate and mobilise protestors and carry out a “beta version” of the riots in parts of Delhi in December 2019. These beta riots refer to ten incidents of clashes within the span of a week between anti-Citizenship Act protestors and the police in four areas of the city.
The second phase constituted strategic mobilisation: the coordination of student bodies, the development of protest sites, and the spread of “propaganda” relating to the act. This took place in December 2019 and January and February 2020. The prosecution pointed to 23 protest sites established in Muslim-majority areas as part of this conspiracy.
The third phase, also spread across January and February 2020, involved planning how to escalate these protests into riots. This allegedly included stockpiling weapons and “conspiratorial meetings”.
The fourth implementation phase occurred in February 2020, involving “chakka jaams” road blockades and confrontations with the police. This, the authorities allege, culminated in the riots in North East Delhi in the final week of February 2020.
Road blockades are a common form of protest used in India by all political parties, including the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Evidence cited included WhatsApp messages and Facebook posts by the accused. A WhatsApp group named “Delhi Protest Support Group” was presented as a platform for planning and managing the riots.
The prosecution relied heavily on statements by protected witnesses – whose identities are hidden by the prosecution. They allege that the accused held meetings to plan to escalate the roadblocks into violence. These witnesses claimed that the accused individuals also discussed stockpiling weapons and targeting police and non-Muslims. They alleged that some of the accused persons arranged and distributed funds to facilitate the riots.
The prosecution pointed to CCTV footage showing some of the accused persons meeting at protest sites and other locations. It cited call detail records – that is, digital records of calls and messages exchanged between phones – of the accused persons, indicating that they were communicating with each other.
Lack of direct evidence
The most striking feature of the prosecution’s case is the glaring absence of direct evidence linking the accused to acts of violence. Instead, the chargesheets rely heavily on inference and conjecture to paint a picture of a grand conspiracy. As all the lawyers that Scroll spoke with pointed out, most of the accused have been booked in the case only on the basis of oral allegations by some witnesses. There is no concrete evidence to support the prosecution’s case. No weapons were recovered from any of the accused and no CCTV footage places them at scenes of violence.
The prosecution has only provided evidence of the accused persons organising and participating in protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. However, the WhatsApp group chats and social media posts presented in the chargesheets do not even hint at any plan to escalate the protests into violence.
Despite this, the chargesheets make sinister claims that the objective of the protests was “killing and injuring police personnel and non-Muslims on a mass scale and to damage government and private property by engineering communal riots”.
The prosecution, said a defence lawyer, had “pieced together bits of information and arranged it to fit a predetermined narrative, rather than drawing conclusions from solid evidence”.
Filling gaps with witness statements
Faced with a lack of concrete evidence, the prosecution has relied heavily on witness statements, particularly those of “protected witnesses” whose identities are hidden. These statements, often recorded months after the arrests of the accused individuals, are being used to fill in the gaps in the prosecution’s case to impute criminal motive to protestors.
Without the testimony of these protected witnesseses, the prosecution’s case falls flat.
A protected witness testified that on January 23, activist Umar Khalid, an accused in the case and an alleged mastermind, told others at a “secret office” in Seelampur, Delhi that they were ready to instigate riots if needed. According to the witness, Khalid addressed two other accused and additional protestors at this meeting. He asked some of the other accused to collect acid, glass bottles, stones, sticks and chilli powder.
Another protected witness testified that on February 17, several of the accused met at 2 am at the Chand Bagh protest site and prepared the plan for escalating the protests into riots. According to this plan, protests would be shifted to busy arterial roads in close proximity to “mixed population areas to paralyse the normal movement of traffic and flow of life and engineer riots”. This chakka jaam would force police intervention, followed by confrontation and attacks on policemen and public persons and damage and destruction of public property by arson.
Another protected witness told the police that on the night of February 20 and 21, at a meeting in Chand Bagh, some of the accused resolved to “burn down Delhi” and “kill 100-200 persons”.
On the night of February 22, a day before the riots started, some of the conspirators “exhorted” Jamia students to reach the North East Delhi protest sites and “create chakka jam and orchestrate riots”, according to one protected witness.
Another claimed that on the same night, another meeting at Chand Bagh by two other accused persons directed its participants to visit the chakka jaam in Jafrabad. They were directed to similarly stoke riots in other protest sites.
A protected witness statement cited in the chargesheet said that on February 23, three of the female accused persons provided stones, broken glass bottles and red chilli powder to 300 women. These women had been brought from Jahangirpuri to Jafrabad to attack the police as well as non-Muslims. Another protected witness claimed that on the night of February 23, some of the accused held a meeting at Chand Bagh and decided to cover and destroy the CCTV cameras in the area. After this, one of the accused disconnected the cameras in Chand Bagh.
There are also several protected witness statements alleging that five of the accused persons gave money to other conspirators to obtain weapons.
These uncorroborated testimonies are the foundation on which the prosecution has built its conspiracy narrative. There is no independent evidence to verify these allegations: no messages among the accused in WhatsApp groups and no audio or video recording of any of the accused persons planning or committing violence.
All the defence lawyers Scroll spoke with cast aspersions on the veracity of these testimonies. “When these testimonies are tested before the court during trial, all of them will turn hostile,” predicted a lawyer representing one of the accused, implying that the statements of the protected witnesses were drawn out by the police through coercion or allurement. Hostile witnesses are those whose testimony during trial differs from the statements they have made during the investigation.
Another defence lawyer told Scroll that the chargesheets “read like a poorly written script where things are not really making sense”. This is because, he said, the prosecution “makes grand claims, but there isn’t any real material to back them up.” This is where, he said, the witness statements fortuitously come to the prosecution’s rescue.
The Delhi police has been rapped on its knuckles by courts several times over the past few years for fabricating evidence in other 2020 riots-related cases.
Criminalising protest
Apart from protected witness statements, the only other evidence in the chargesheets are efforts by people, including but not limited to the 20 persons named as accused, to organise protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. Such protests had spread across the country at the time.
In doing this, the prosecution’s narrative blurs the line between the right to protest and acts of violence. Organising and managing protest sites is portrayed as evidence of conspiratorial intent by itself.
The chargesheets cite as evidence chats from WhatsApp groups such as “Delhi Protest Support Group”, “JMI [Jamia Millia Islamia] Coordination Committee” and “Jamia Awareness Campaign Team” to claim that they were meant for “mass mobilisation for creating protest sites”. They claim that the Jamia Awareness Campaign Team visited Muslim-dominated areas of Delhi and “instigated” them to create “sit-in 24x7 protest[s]”. They refer to the “Delhi Protest Support Group” providing legal assistance and funds for the maintenance of the protest sites.
Several witness statements against those accused in the case of “terror financing” simply state that the accused persons gave money to sustain protest sites against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.
Defence lawyers told Scroll that the prosecution’s conflation of protest and conspiracy effectively criminalises dissent. “Organising and managing protest sites, a fundamental aspect of democratic expression, is portrayed as evidence of conspiratorial intent,” one of them said. “Individuals have been accused not for inciting violence, but for exercising their constitutional right to protest.”
Another noted that “the investigating agency has presented evidence in a manner that the protesters are being treated as rioters”.
Identical witness statements
Another striking hole in the chargesheets is the appearance of identical phrases and sentences in statements from different witnesses.
For instance, three police officers – Head Constable Sunil and Constables Gyan and Sunil, all from the Dayal Pur police station – gave almost exactly similar testimonies over July 6 and 7, 2020 during the investigation. Not only their language, but the order of names recounted in all three statements, is exactly the same.
| Name | Statement (translated in English) |
|---|---|
| Head Constable Sunil | This anti-CAA protest was launched by Sardar DS Bindra, Suleman Siddiqui alias Salman, Saleem Malik alias Munna, Mohd Saleem Khan and others. |
| Constable Gyan | This anti-CAA protest was launched by Sardar DS Bindra, Suleman Siddiqui alias Salman, Saleem Malik alias Munna, Mohd Saleem Khan and others. |
| Constable Sunil | This anti-CAA protest was launched by Sardar DS Bindra, Suleman Siddiqui alias Salman, Saleem Malik alias Munna, Mohd Saleem Khan and others. |
| Name | Statement (translated in English) |
|---|---|
| Head Constable Sunil | … Salman Siddiqui, Saleem alias Munna, Salim Khan, Athar, Shadab, Ayub, Upasna, Tabassum, Ravish and others present in the protest had provoked the public to commit violence and they had committed arson and sabotage to the government and private properties attacking policemen and general citizens by pelting stone, sticks and rods etc. |
| Constable Gyan | … Salman Siddiqui, Saleem alias Munna, Salim Khan, Athar, Shadab, Ayub, Upasna, Tabassum, Ravish and others present in the protest had provoked the public to commit violence and they had committed arson and sabotage to the government and private properties attacking policemen and general citizens by pelting stone, sticks and rods etc. |
| Constable Sunil | … Salman Siddiqui, Salim alias Munna, Salim Khan, Athar, Shadab, Ayub, Upasna, Tabassum, Ravish and others present in the protest had instigated the public present in the protest for violence and they had committed arson and sabotage to the government and private properties by fatally attacking the policemen and general public by pelting stones, sticks, rods and others. |
| Name | Statement (translated in English) |
|---|---|
| Constable Sunil | ... Bheem Army had declared Bharat Band on 23.02.2020, on whose pretext, the organisers of the Chand Bagh protest declared to take march from Chand Bagh protest site to Rajghat but the police had stopped due to absence of the permission, on which Salman Siddiqui, Salim Khan, Salim Malik alias Munna, Athar, Shadab and others together with the protesters blocked the road. |
| Constable Gyan | ... Bheem Army had declared Bharat Band on 23.02.2020, on whose pretext, the organisers of the Chand Bagh protest declared to take march from Chand Bagh protest site to Rajghat but the police had stopped due to absence of the permission, on which Salman Siddiqui, Salim Khan, Salim Malik alias Munna, Athar, Shadab and others together with the protesters blocked the road. |
The testimony recorded before a magistrate by two witnesses about what two different accused persons told them is similarly almost identical.
Witness Akib Aman’s statement – translated here into English – against accused Shifa-ur-Rehman includes the sentence: “When we gave one lakh rupees to Aazmi, Shifa-ur-Rehman and NGO, Faisal Khan, both said, ‘You and your father don’t know that the money you have given us, how much it will help us in our war against the government relating to the CAA.’”
A statement – also translated here into English – by a protected witness code-named “Platinum” implicating accused Meeran Haider is: “In February, when I gave Meeran money, he told me, ‘You and [redacted name] don’t know, this money you have given for help, how much it will help me in the war against the anti-Muslim Indian government relating to the CAA.’”
This suggests that the testimonies may have been fabricated, defence lawyers said.
Crafting a narrative
The use of loaded language and unsubstantiated claims in the chargesheets points to the prosecution’s prejudiced position against the accused, defence lawyers say.
The prosecution’s case begins by claiming that “certain individuals with treacherous intentions” leveraged the passage of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act “to disrupt the secular fabric of the nation”. It adds that their “primary motive was to advance hidden agendas under the guise of opposition” to the act.
The prosecution alleges that two of the accused, Khalid and Sharjeel Imam, “broke the secular fabric” of Jawaharlal Nehru University” by creating the WhatsApp groups “Muslim Students of JNU” and “Students Of Jamia”. Both groups are called “visibly and explicitly communal”.
No reasoning is provided for these coloured assertions about Khalid and Imam and the groups.
Most of the meetings among the accused for organising the protests are described by the prosecution as “secret conspiratorial meetings”. In fact, these meetings were planned openly and conducted through WhatsApp groups.
After the riots, the “Delhi Protest Support Group” added new members and started working on the relief and rehabilitation of riots victims. The prosecution dramatically spun this as having been done “to portray themselves as Saint instead of Demon and [create] a false drama of relief and rehabilitation”.
Missing conspirators
A conspicuous aspect of the chargesheets is that they allege that several individuals who have not been booked in the case were involved in the conspiracy.
The prosecution alleges that filmmaker and activist Rahul Roy played a central role in the conspiracy, primarily through his involvement with the “Delhi Protest Support Group” WhatsApp group. He was accused of co-founding and operating the group. The prosecution highlighted his attendance at “conspiratorial meetings” at which plans for chakka jams and escalating protests were allegedly discussed.
Crucially, the prosecution points to Roy’s messages as evidence of incitement. For instance, presented as proof of his intention to escalate protests to violence is a message he allegedly sent stating, “Blocking roads will be the obvious first strategy… The next phase of this movement will be confrontational.”
He is also accused of instructing protesters to conceal their identities from the police and of dismissing concerns about potential violence during chakka jams. The prosecution highlights his post-riot actions, including deleting messages and removing accused individuals from the WhatsApp group, as attempts to cover up the conspiracy.
Another person alleged to have been a mastermind of the conspiracy is activist Nadeem Khan. Protected witnesses claimed that he facilitated legal aid for protestors and acted as a “remote supervisor” at the Khureji protest site in East Delhi. He also allegedly monitored the Hazrat Nizamuddin protest site and was part of the “Delhi Protest Support Group”.
They alleged that he coordinated with some of the accused in planning meetings and mobilising protesters. The prosecution also pointed to his alleged role in raising funds for the protests.
The alleged culpability of most of the accused persons in the conspiracy is much less than that of Roy and Khan, as per the prosecution’s case. However, neither Roy and Khan were named as accused in the case. They have not even been interrogated by the police.
Similarly, there were several other people, in addition to the accused, who were part of either the allegedly “conspiratorial meetings” or of the WhatsApp groups on which the conspiracy was orchestrated who have not been booked in the case. They include filmmaker Saba Dewan, academic Apoorvanand and activist Yogendra Yadav.
The seemingly random pick-and-choose approach of who to book in the case was flagged to Scroll by most of the defence lawyers. They said that this was yet another indicator of the arbitrary and capricious nature of the prosecution's case.
UAPA only for bail denial?
Even if one takes the prosecution’s word that the accused persons conspired to cause rioting, would that qualify as an offence under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act?
A terrorist act, under the statute, is one that “threatens or likely to threaten the unity, integrity, security…or sovereignty of India” or “with intent to strike terror or likely to strike terror in the people”. The prosecution’s case is that the accused used means like “bombs, dynamite or other explosive substances or inflammable substances or firearms or other lethal weapons” – even though no such weapons were recovered – to “[disrupt] supplies and services essential to normal life and [attempt] to dismember constituent provinces of India from the Union of India.” For this claim of cutting off parts of India, the prosecution solely relied on a speech made by Imam at the Aligarh Muslim University on January 16, 2020 and a Facebook post of his on January 24, 2020. However, in both, Imam speaks only of the objective of chakka jaam as a tool of protest.
Since there is little proof of any acts of terror and the fact that rioting and distribution of weapons are already covered under other penal statutes, most defence lawyers contend that the act was applied only to deny bail to the accused.
It is notoriously difficult to secure bail when booked under the act. Courts can refuse to grant bail in cases invoking the anti-terror law if a “prima facie case” is made out. “It is easy to meet this threshold because if there is even one protected witness who says that I have seen the accused do something, that is enough,” said a defence lawyer.
This view was seconded by Paras Nath Singh, a Delhi-based Advocate on Record. “UAPA has become a weapon to keep a person behind bars for the same set of allegations for which they would otherwise get bail easily,” he said.
Indeed, most of the accused persons have secured bail from courts in all other non-UAPA cases against them. However, most of them have not been released from jail because they have not managed to get bail in the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act case.
Twelve of the accused in the case have been under detention for around or over five years now without even charges being framed against them. They are Sharjeel Imam, Khalid Saifi, Tahir Hussain, Gulfisha Fatima, Meeran Haider, Shifa-ur-Rehman, Shadab Ahmed, Tasleem Ahmed, Mohd. Saleem Khan, Saleem Malik, Athar Khan and Umar Khalid.
Tahir Hussain’s bail application is being heard by a sessions court in Delhi at present. Saleem Malik’s bail application was rejected last month by a sessions court. The Delhi High Court is currently hearing the bail applications of the remaining ten still under arrest. Most of these bail pleas have been pending before the High Court for almost three years now.
Singh called the pendency of the bail applications before the High Court “in complete violation of the arrested persons’ right to speedy trial under Article 21 of the Constitution.” He said, “The High Court needs to apply the law laid down by the Supreme Court that when there is delay in trial, the restrictions on bail under UAPA melt down and a constitutional court can grant bail solely on grounds of delay in trial.”
The rest of the accused have also undergone significant periods of incarceration too. Asif Iqbal Tanha, Devangana Kalita and Natasha Narwal were in prison for over a year before being released on bail in 2021 by the Delhi High Court. Isharat Jahan was in jail for two years before being granted bail in March 2022 by a sessions court.
Safoora Zargar was released on medical bail by the High Court in June 2020 after two months in detention since she was pregnant at that time. Faizan Khan spent three months in jail before being given bail by the High Court in October 2020.
Suleman Sidiqui and Amanullah are absconding.
