Five years on, Umar Khalid awaits bail, trial
Umar Khalid, the 37-year-old Jawaharlal Nehru University history student, an avowed atheist, finished five years in jail on September 13.
On December 24, 2022, Sahiba Khanam was woken up by the trill of her mobile phone at 7am. On the other side of the line was her son Umar Khalid, minutes after he was released from Delhi’s Tihar Jail for the first time in two years.
“He just said salaam. I jumped out of bed and told everyone he’d be home in 30 minutes,” Khanam said.
Khalid, a student leader who was arrested in connection with the 2020 Delhi riots, had been granted interim bail for seven days by the Delhi high court for his sister Zainab Fatima’s wedding.
“The moment he walked through the door, almost everyone was in tears,” his mother recalled. “I remember feeding him with my hands.”
His five sisters - from the US, UK, and Dubai - flew in to Delhi to see him. In the melee of friends, family and well-wishers, Khalid didn’t sleep for the first 36 hours. “I forced him to rest,” said Khanam, who runs a boutique in the Johri Farms neighbourhood.
Almost two years later, Khanam’s phone rang again on December 28, 2024. Khalid was about to be released again, for another week, for the wedding of a cousin. His sister Kulsum Fatima cut short a vacation to bring her children to meet Khalid.
“This time, we had a bit more time together since the wedding wasn’t at our own home. When he arrived, he said he would eat meat every day because he didn’t get it in jail, but two days later, he was back to daal-chawal,” Khanam laughed.
Eventually, on January 3, he went back to Tihar. He has remained there since. “When I went to drop him back at the jail, he said he felt the same pain he used to feel when I dropped him to nursery school,” Khanam said.
Khalid is charged under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, as well as for criminal conspiracy, sedition, rioting, and attempted murder under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for his alleged role in fomenting violence that killed 53 people during the riots in February 2020.
Earlier this month, the Delhi high court denied bail to Khalid, fellow student leader Sharjeel Imam and nine others, ruling that it didn’t matter if he was not present when violence broke out, said it couldn’t be said that the evidence was weak, and held that he made speeches meant to instigate the Muslim community.
But sections of civil society, activists and friends of Khalid point out that he has stayed behind bars for extended periods of time without a guilty verdict, that his bail applications saw deferments, adjournments or recusals in the Delhi high court, and the Supreme Court, and that the purported evidence has never shown any direct call to violence by him.
The 37-year-old Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) history student, an avowed atheist, finished five years in jail on September 13.
Khalid was born in 1987 in the Sunlight Colony neighbourhood of Delhi to Syed Qasim Rasool Ilyas, the general secretary of the Welfare Party of India, and Khanam. He went to Kirori Mal College where he studied historybefore moving to JNU for his masters and PhD degrees.
His first brush with trouble came in February 2016, when some student groups in JNU held a protest against the hanging of 2001 Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru and Kashmiri separatist Maqbool Bhat. Khalid, former JNU Students’ Union (JNUSU) president Kanhaiya Kumar, and student Anirban Bhattacharya, were arrested in February 2016. They were granted bail in March. Kanhaiya is now a Congress leader.
Then, when violence broke out in Maharashtra’s Bhima Koregaon village in 2018, Khalid, along with the now Congress leader Jignesh Mewani, were charged with promoting enmity and circulating false statements. Later that year, he survived an assassination attempt in Delhi, when he was shot at outside the Constitution Club.
In the middle of this, he submitted his PhD thesis in 2018. He has not yet been awarded his degree.
As 2020 rolled around, Khalid had turned into a polarising figure. Many people, especially law enforcement agencies and right-wing groups, accused him of fomenting communal passions. But others, including student groups, saw in him a figure standing in dissent against the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act and associated speculation around a nationwide National Register of Citizens.
The riots broke out in February 2020 at a sit-in protest in northeast Delhi’s Jaffrabad.
On September 13, 2020, Khalid was arrested. In its charge sheet filed in November 2020, the police alleged there was a “tacit understanding” among the accused to carry out an “illegal” act. It claimed that through a “sustained and well-oiled campaign,” they instilled fear and insecurity in the minority community.
“All the accused came together in pursuit of an unlawful objective. The offences were committed in an extremely brutal, grotesque, and dastardly manner. Innocent victims and the helpless were targeted in this ghastly, horrendous, and horrifying crime. Precious lives were lost...Their acts and omissions have shocked the collective conscience of society. Their conduct exhibits a total disregard for human values and reflects a depraved, brutal, and scheming mindset. The accused have committed a crime against humanity,” the police stated.
Khalid faces one FIR, lodged by the Delhi Police special cell in the case that pertains to the larger premeditated conspiracy behind the riots in northeast Delhi.
Khalid’s lawyers, friends and activists contest these charges. His legal team, led by senior advocate Trideep Pais, argues that there was no physical evidence against Khalid — call records, recordings, weapons or notes — that can link him to the violence. His lawyer said Khalid was not in the city when the violence erupted.
Khalid was also booked and arrested under section 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC , over an incident of mob violence in Khajuri Khas. He, and his co-accused Khalid Saifi, were discharged in December 2022, due to lack of evidence regarding their involvement.
In the UAPA case, charges are currently being framed.
Khalid first approached the Supreme Court for bail on May 18, 2022. His case was heard by a bench of justices AS Bopanna and PK Mishra. Over the course of the next nine months, the top court adjourned his petition 10 times. Out of these, his lawyers sought at least four adjournments and the prosecution sought three adjournments while the rest were done by the court.
In an interview earlier this year, former Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud said the top court was unfairly criticised and many adjournments were sought by Khalid’s lawyer.
Khalid withdrew the petition on February 14, 2024. Earlier this week, he approached the top court for bail again. A bench ofjustices Aravind Kumar and NV Anjaria was to start hearing the case on Friday, but adjourned it for September 19.
“The way the Delhi Police have built the case, it could go on for years, which means Umar will always be embroiled in it. I don’t know how he’ll pursue life. But it definitely won’t be a normal, traditional life,” his father said.
The long incarceration has changed his friends and family.
Khanam keeps photographs of her grandchildren holding a placard that reads: “Love you Mamu (maternal uncle).” The youngest granddaughter holding the placard, all of three, hasn’t even met Khalid.
“Whenever we talk through video conferencing, he always asks about his sisters, nieces, and nephews. If I mention once that one of the kids caught a cold, he’ll remember to ask me the following week if they’re better,” she said.
His father said Khalid used his time in jail to read. Once a week, during their video calls, Khanam sits with a pen and paper to note down the books he asks for. “He’s read 150 books so far, and the number keeps growing. But I get worried - how long can this continue? He’s in a solitary cell for his safety and is let out only twice a day for three hours each,” Ilyas said.
Khalid’s partner, fellow JNU student Banojyotsana Lahiri, said she meets him every week. “I visit Tihar and a few friends take turns to see him,” she said, sitting in her drawing room, where a sketch of Khalid sits amid hundreds of books.
Lahiri, Khalid’s partner for nearly a decade, said she has kept away from thoughts about his incarceration.
“I don’t dwell on what could have been if he weren’t in jail. I don’t think about what will happen when he gets out either - those thoughts pull me down. Whenever I meet him, we make sure it’s a happy interaction to carry us both through the week,” she said.
She added that she’ll always support Khalid in whatever he chooses to do when he comes out. “He found his voice and his calling. I will never ask him to stop speaking up for the causes he believes in, just for a peaceful life,” she said.
