A Delhi court on Tuesday, 24 November, took cognisance of the fresh supplementary charge sheet filed against former JNU student Umar Khalid, university's research scholar Sharjeel Imam and one accused Faizan Khan in an alleged conspiracy case in the communal violence in northeast Delhi in February.
“After perusal of the charge sheet and accompanying documents, there is sufficient material to proceed against accused persons,” Additional Sessions Judge Amitabh Rawat said in the order.
The court has directed the counsel of the accused to collect the soft copy of the charge sheet on 2 December afternoon. Faizan, who is on bail, has been summoned on 22 December.
"Since two accused persons, namely Sharjeel Imam and Umar Khalid, are present today with their counsel through Webex app, hence, there is no need to issue summons," the court said.
On Sunday, the Delhi Police had filed a supplementary charge sheet, running into 930 pages, against the trio. The case pertains to a 'conspiracy' to incite the riots, which had left 53 people dead and 748 injured. The police has claimed that the communal violence was a premeditated conspiracy allegedly hatched by Khalid and others.
The charge sheet against the three accused was filed under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and sections related to criminal conspiracy, murder, rioting, sedition, unlawful assembly and promoting enmity on the grounds of religion, language, caste under the Indian Penal Code.
In the new charge sheet, Delhi Police described Umar Khalid as "veteran of sedition" and the "point of convergence of twin lines of pan Islamism and ultra Left anarchism", reported The Times of India. Police claimed that Khalid used his intellectual acumen to hatch the conspiracy.
The court, on Sunday, had deferred the hearing to take cognisance of this charge sheet.
The first 17,500-page charge sheet in the case against 15 people was filed by Delhi Police two months ago. It named Tahir Hussain, Safoora Zargar, Gulfisha Khatoon, Devangana Kalita, Shafa-ur-Rehman, Asif Iqbal Tanha, Natasha Narwal, Abdul Khalid Saifi, Ishrat Jahan, Meeran Haidar, Shadab Ahamd, Talsim Ahmad, Saleem Malik, Mohammed Salim Khan and Athar Khan.
(With inputs from IANS)
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