By Syed Khalique Ahmed
The Delhi high court’s judgement on June 15 on the bail petition of student activists- Asif Iqbal Tanha, Devangana Kalita and Natasha Narwal- had raised hopes that other activists incarcerated in jail for over a year in connection with the Northeast Delhi riots of February 2020 will also come out of jail and spend a normal life.
However, the Supreme Court’s order on Friday (June 18) may have come as a big shock for other activists and their families when the top court said that the order of the Delhi high court in case of the three activists will not be treated as a precedent by any court in the country. However, the apex court’s refusal to grant stay on the Delhi police petition seeking cancellation of the bail, came a big relief for the three student activists. The Supreme Court gave the order while hearing Delhi Police petition challenging the bail granted to the three student activists by the Delhi High Court. The three activists were released on June 17.
Stating that the Delhi high court’s interpretation of anti-terror Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) will have pan-India ramification, the Supreme Court bench comprising justices Hemant Gupta and V Ramasubramanian observed that there was a need for interpretation of the terror law by country’s top court. The apex court also said that the Delhi high court, in its discussion on UAPA, had gone into the legality of the law while they were just hearing a bail application. What the Delhi high court said was that the state in its bid to curb dissent had blurred the line between dissent and terrorism and if this mindset is allowed to continue, it would be very harmful for democracy. No doubt that the Delhi court order delivered by Siddharth Mridul and Anup Jayram Bhambhani received acclaim because the judgement provided a ray of hope for release of dozens of other activists slapped with UAPA merely for protesting against CAA or in other cases like that of Bhima-Koregaon. People appreciated the court order because a week ago, the Supreme court had also dropped sedition cases against noted Delhi-based journalist Vinod Dua.
It may be mentioned here that students from Jamia Millia Islamia university were the first to protest on December 13, 2019 against the passage of the CAA on December 11, 2019, that fast tracked grant of citizenship to illegal immigrants of six religious communities-Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Parsis, Buddhists and Jains-from neighbouring Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh but it excluded Muslims from it. The reason for the protest was that if it was coupled with National Register of Citizens (NRCs) exercise, all non-Muslima, even if they failed to provide evidence of Indian citizenship, would get Indian citizenship because of provision of CAA but a vast population of Indian Muslims would become aliens in their own country because they are excluded from the protection of CAA. This was a genuine grievance and Jamia’s students were perfectly justified to organize a peaceful protest against such a law. But police dealt with a heavy hand with them, resulting into severe injuries to many of the student. Police action also resulted into large scale damage to Jamia properties, particularly the library. As the news of police action against protesting Jamia students reached Aligarh Muslim University, just two hour’s road drive from Delhi, AMU students also staged a protest in their campus. Like Delhi, the UP police also acted harshly against the AMU protesters by barging into the campus premises.
The police attack on Jamia and AMU students resulted in anger among the Muslim residents adjoining Jamia who started a sit-in agitation on the main road outside Shaheen Bagh, connecting Delhi with Noida in UP. As all-women led Shaheen Bagh protest attracted international headlines and similar peaceful protests were started at hundreds of places in Muslim pockets all over the country to demand withdrawal of amendments in CAA, an anti-Muslim riot was orchestrated in Northeast Delhi with the ruling BJP and Delhi police accusing the peaceful CAA protesters and student and social activists being involved in the conspiracy behind the riots. While the police failed identify the real conspirators behind the riots, it went on arresting student activists and Muslims, who were the worst victims of the riots. Such a thing had never happened in the past in India.
