Delhi riots: Congress leader Salman Khurshid, CPM's Brinda Karat named in chargesheet

New Delhi: Senior Congress leader and former Union Minister Salman Khurshid, CPM leader Brinda Karat and Udit Raj were among politicians who gave provocative speeches during the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), alleged Delhi police in the charge sheet filed in connection with the February riots. Police have referred to former Congress Councillor Ishrat Jahan and a protected witness in a case related to the northeast Delhi riots and said that they told about the speeches in their disclosure statements given to them. The charge sheet said that the protected witness has stated in the statement recorded, under section 161 (examination by police) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, that several big names like politician Udit Raj, Khurshid, Karat had come to the Khureji protest site and gave “provocative speech”. “Several big names used to come to the Khureji site to give speeches against CAA/NPR (National Population Register)/NRC (National Register for Citizens), like Udit Raj, Salman, Khurshid, Brinda Karat, Umar Khalid (former JNU student leader)…,” the witness alleged. The charge sheet further said that Jahan, in her disclosure statement, alleged that in order to sustain the anti-CAA protests, several known persons like Khurshid, filmmaker Rahul Roy, and Bhim Army member Himanshu were called by her and activist Khalid Saifi on the instructions of Jamia Coordination Committee (JCC). “In order to sustain the protest for a long time, several known persons were called by me and Khalid Saifi on the instructions of JCC, like Salman Kurshid, (filmmaker) Rahul Roy, Bhim Army member Himanshu, Chandan Kumar… gave provocative speeches because of which all the people sitting in the protest used to get instigated against the government,” Jahan said according to her disclosure statement. The disclosure statement of Saifi stated that during the anti-CAA protests held in January 2020 “Swaraj Abhiyan leader Yogender Yadav, (senior advocate) Prashant Bhushan, Salman Kurshid… also used to come to these speeches.” The supplementary disclosure statement of Saifi, which was a part of the charge sheet, stated that in order to sustain the protest for a longer time several known persons like Khurshid, JNU student Sharjeel Imam, JCC member Meeran Haider were called to the Khureji protest site. “In order to sustain the protest for a longer time several known persons like Kurshid, Sharjeel Imam, Meeran Haider, etc were called to the Khureji protest site by me and Ishrat Jahan,” he said in his disclosure statement. Communal clashes had broken out in northeast Delhi on 24 February after violence between citizenship law supporters and protesters spiralled out of control leaving at least 53 people dead and around 200 injured.