Activist Umar Khalid on Thursday alleged before a Delhi court that the police had singled him out as an accused in the 2020 Delhi riots larger conspiracy case while several others with “bigger roles were not made an accused”, The Hindu reported.

Khalid’s lawyer made the submission before Additional Sessions Judge Sameer Bajpai of the Karkardooma Courts while opposing the framing of charges against the activist.

Khalid was arrested in September 2020 in connection with the clashes that broke out in North East Delhi in February 2020 between supporters of the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act and those opposing it. The riots left 53 people dead. Most of those killed were Muslims.

Khalid and several other activists have been booked for offences under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, the Indian Penal Code, Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act and the Arms Act.

The Delhi Police claim that the violence was part of a larger conspiracy to defame Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government and was planned by those who organised the protests, including Khalid, against the amended Citizenship Act.

Advocate Trideep Pais, representing Khalid, was quoted by Live Law as having contended that although several persons were “identically situated” with respect to the violence, Khalid was the one against whom the police made allegations.

In the chargesheet, the police alleged that Khalid “coalesced a coalition of the current government haters that led to the formation of Delhi Protest Support Group on WhatsApp”.

The police had also alleged that the WhatsApp group was formed after Khalid mentored a group of students called “Muslim Students of JNU [Jawaharlal Nehru University]” with the help of Sharjeel Imam, another activist, to incite violence.

Noting that Khalid was named in the case on account of being a member of certain WhatsApp groups, Pais asked why no administrators of the groups were accused of involvement in the alleged conspiracy.

The counsel said that another claim in the chargesheet was that Khalid attended a “conspiratorial meeting” in Delhi’s Jangpura on December 8, 2019.

Pais quoted witnesses as saying that the meeting was also attended by activist-politician Yogendra Yadav and human rights activist Nadeem Khan. He was asked what was the difference between Yadav and others who attended the meeting and Khalid, who was booked under the anti-terror law.

He asked: “If this is the conspiracy on which you are pegging…why haven’t you booked others as accused?”

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