New Delhi, India Saima Saleem, 27, has been ready for hours on a bench outdoors a courtroom of legislation in New Delhi, her eyes glued to a hall as she waits for her father, Mohammad Saleem Khan, to look.
Khan, 49, was arrested three years in the past for rioting and homicide throughout the spiritual riots within the Indian capital, by which 53 folks – most of them Muslims – had been killed. The courts supplied him bail in each the circumstances.
However Khan continues to languish in jail as he has not been in a position to safe bail in a case beneath the Illegal Actions Prevention Act (UAPA), a controversial anti-terror legislation that has been used towards Khan and several other different Muslims accused of allegedly -planning” the riots.
“My father is harmless. He was a outstanding social employee locally who helped folks and he was focused for that,” Saima advised Al Jazeera whereas ready for her father to reach on the Karkardooma courtroom.
“Folks now deal with us like terrorists despite the fact that everybody is aware of all these costs are politically and communally motivated,” she stated.
UAPA, termed by critics and rights teams as a draconian laws, was amended in 2019 by the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Social gathering (BJP) authorities to permit authorities to declare a person a “terrorist” and detain them with out trial for months, typically years . Beforehand, the “terrorist” tag was reserved just for teams or organizations.
The federal government final 12 months knowledgeable the parliament that just about 4,700 folks had been arrested beneath the legislation between 2018 and 2020, however solely 149 had been discovered responsible – a conviction price of almost 3 %.
Police booked a minimum of 18 Muslims, together with pupil leaders and activists akin to Khalid Saifi, Omar Khalid and Miran Haider, beneath the UAPA, alleging a “bigger conspiracy” to create spiritual tensions – a declare rubbished by authorized and rights specialists.
“The explanation why these persons are nonetheless in jail regardless of costs being dismissed on so many grounds is that they’ve been booked beneath a draconian legislation like UAPA which calls itself an anti-terror legislation however has at all times been used to suppress dissent,” rights activist Kavita Krishnan advised Al Jazeera.
“Beneath this legislation, it’s tough to get bail so the police simply have to cost folks beneath UAPA and delay the trial by saying that they’re investigating and so you might be more likely to stay in jail for a few years,” she stated.
Police ‘selectively focusing on’ Muslims
Saleem’s allegation that the police investigation into the Delhi riots is being performed on spiritual strains is just not an remoted voice.
Critics and several other worldwide rights teams have accused the Indian authorities of framing members of the Muslim group for instigating the violence, which erupted after right-wing Hindu teams focused peaceable sit-in protests towards a recently-introduced citizenship legislation.
The Citizenship Modification Act (CAA) allowed non-Muslims from India’s neighboring international locations to safe Indian citizenship in the event that they arrived in India earlier than December 2014. Critics stated the legislation violated India’s secular structure and the United Nations specialists known as it “basically discriminatory”.
The passage of the legislation triggered unprecedented protests by India’s Muslims, with a primarily women-led sit-in at New Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh being the epicentre. In the meantime, a number of BJP leaders made inflammatory speeches – even threatening violence – and known as to forcefully disperse the protesters.
The riots that adopted – which many authorities critics termed as an anti-Muslim pogrom – led to the widespread destruction of property and displacement of hundreds of individuals, largely Muslims, within the northeastern a part of the Indian capital. Mosques, houses and companies had been burnt and looted.
“The individuals who really gave hate speeches and instigated the riots, that embody BJP leaders, are nonetheless free. They have not spent a single day in jail. These imprisoned are Muslims who had been concerned in peaceable sit-ins towards a legislation which threatened to disenfranchise them,” activist Krishnan advised Al Jazeera.
Al Jazeera reached out to BJP spokesperson Gopal Krishna Agarwal, however he declined to touch upon the story.
In a report on the Delhi riots, the United States-based Human Rights Watch stated final 12 months the police investigations into the violence had been “marked by bias, delays, inaccuracy, lack of correct proof, and failure to observe correct procedures”.
Moreover, the Delhi Police, managed by the federal authorities, had been additionally accused of inaction and selective focusing on of Muslims throughout the violence. In a single obtrusive occasion, cops had been seen throwing stones in the direction of Muslims together with the Hindu mobs throughout the riots.
“The police had been main the mobs in throwing stones at Muslims and in addition vandalising properties,” Muslim activist Aasif Mujtaba, who has labored on the rehabilitation of the survivors of the riots, advised Al Jazeera. “In the course of the violence, police had been on the again defending the rioters who had been rampaging on the entrance.”
Many rioters confessed to the media that the police helped them assault Muslims throughout the violence. “We did not have sufficient stones right here, so the police introduced some and advised us to throw them,” a person advised the BBC in a latest documentaries on the aftermath of the violence.
When requested concerning the allegations, Suman Nalwa, deputy commissioner of police for public relations in New Delhi, advised Al Jazeera, “I am unable to touch upon the difficulty. Every part is in public area. You’ll be able to verify the information reviews.
However the courts have additionally termed police investigations in lots of delhi violence circumstances as “farcical” and “callous”. In September 2021, a Delhi courtroom launched Muslim males in a case of rioting for lack of proof and “failure of the investigating authorities to conduct a correct investigation”. A month later, the decide who gave the decision was transferred for unreported causes.
‘Authorities desires us to be silent’
Syed Tasneef Hussain, 58, is uncertain when his 30-year-old daughter Gulfishan Fatima can be out of jail. Following the Delhi riots, Fatima was charged with a number of allegations, together with rioting, homicide and inciting communal violence.
Nonetheless, her mother and father say she was focused for main a peaceable women-led protest towards the CAA in Jaffarabad, a predominantly Muslim neighborhood in northeast Delhi.
“It has been three years since she has not been house. I want she is again quickly,” Hussain advised Al Jazeera at his residence. “They [government] need us to be silent and devoid of any voice. We’re being harassed and intimidated for no purpose. What’s our mistake? That we’re Muslims?
Like Khan, Fatima has additionally obtained bail in a number of circumstances however continues to be in jail beneath the UAPA. Activists say protesters akin to Fatima and Khan are being punished for merely opposing the federal government’s insurance policies.
“Now we have very positive younger folks in prisons beneath UAPA for years with out their trials starting. Individuals who clearly instigated the hate regardless of our intervention within the highest courts of the land have not been arrested. Then again, they created flimsy costs towards individuals who had been outstanding within the anti-CAA protests,” outstanding rights activist Harsh Mander advised Al Jazeera.
MR Shamshad, a lawyer in India’s Supreme Court docket who has taken up a number of Delhi riots circumstances, stated many individuals had been charged with out proof.
“To provoke felony trials, you want substantive proof however in most of those circumstances these substantive evidences are lacking,” he advised Al Jazeera.
Shamshad stated the UAPA is a “draconian legislation which ought to be utilized sparingly in very distinctive circumstances”. “However it seems that in Delhi riots circumstances, it has been unreasonably imposed upon many individuals,” he added.
