Aam Aadmi Party leader Sanjay Singh on Sunday alleged that the communal violence in North East Delhi was a “deep conspiracy” engineered by the Bharatiya Janata Party ahead of the Assembly elections in the Capital, The Indian Express reported. The violence in February that took place between supporters and opponents of the Citizenship Amendment Act led to 53 deaths and hundreds of injuries.

“The riots in Delhi were an outcome of a deep conspiracy by the BJP,” Singh said at a press conference. “The riots were engineered by the BJP...I said this in Parliament as well that the BJP organised the riots.”

Singh added the police, which comes under the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, did not take any action against the perpetrators of violence and nor have they filed the chargesheets properly, according to The Hindu. “While in some cases they [the chargesheets] were filed poorly, in other cases, they were especially strong with additional details,” the Rajya Sabha MP said. “Sometimes, they [the police] were hiding the truth.”

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Singh also spoke about the ongoing tussle between the Delhi government and Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal over the latter’s insistence that six public prosecutors recommended by the Delhi Police should argue the riot-related cases. “Why are they bent on putting the Centre’s and the L-G’s favourite lawyer on the case?” he said.

The Aam Aadmi Party leader alleged that the BJP wanted lawyers of its choice to be appointed in connection with the case in order to “suppress the dark deeds and shield the dark faces” who were involved in the violence. “This is why the BJP government and the L-G are so desperate to get those lawyers appointed,” he added. “We [the Delhi government] have lodged our protest. We want [an] unbiased investigation and a fair trial. You must have seen even the court has pulled up [the police] in the recent past.”

On Saturday, a statement from the Lieutenant Governor’s Office had dismissed all apprehension that a fair investigation into the incident will be impaired if public prosecutors chosen by the Delhi Police argue the matter. “It is beyond doubt that the PP [public prosecutor] represents the state by virtue of his office,” the statement said. “At the same time, he is also an officer of the court and is required to render assistance to the court to arrive at a just and equitable decision...there is no reason to imagine that the PPs appointed wouldn’t perform their duty fearlessly and impartially as officers of the court.”

Last week, 72 civil society members wrote an open letter to President Ram Nath Kovind, seeking the establishment of a commission of inquiry into the manner of investigation of the February violence in Delhi. The signatories said that while the Delhi Police have set up three Special Investigation Teams to probe the violence and are also inquiring into the possibility of a conspiracy, there are serious questions about the police’s own role, with allegations that the police did not stop the violence in some places, and were even complicit in some instances.