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The Supreme Court on Friday adjourned to September 22 the hearing of bail pleas filed by Sharjeel Imam, Umar Khalid, Gulfisha Fatima, and Meeran Haider in connection with the Delhi riots conspiracy case. The pleas challenge the Delhi High Court's earlier order denying them bail in the case registered under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), linked to the alleged larger conspiracy behind the 2020 north-east Delhi riots.
A bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and Manmohan deferred the matter for hearing on Monday. The accused had approached the apex court after the Delhi High Court, on September 2, dismissed the bail applications of Sharjeel Imam, Umar Khalid and seven other accused in the case - Mohd Saleem Khan, Shifa Ur Rehman, Athar Khan, Meeran Haider, Shadab Ahmed, Abdul Khalid Saifi and Gulfisha Fatima. The bail plea of another accused, Tasleem Ahmed, was also rejected by a separate bench of the High Court. Delhi Police had opposed their bail pleas, saying it was not a case of spontaneous riots but a case where riots were "planned well in advance" with a "sinister motive and well-thought-out conspiracy". The High Court had observed that, prima facie, the role of Imam and Khalid in the entire conspiracy was "grave", having delivered inflammatory speeches on communal lines to "instigate mass mobilisation of members of the Muslim community." Khalid, Imam and others sought bail from the apex court in the larger conspiracy case under the stringent provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) in the Delhi riots case in February 2020. In 2020, the Delhi police arrested Imam under the UAPA and named him the main conspirator behind the Delhi riots case. The violence had erupted during the protests against the then-proposed Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) and had left 53 people dead and over 700 injured. (ANI)
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