NEW DELHI, India – India’s Supreme Court has granted bail to five Muslim students and activists who have been in prison for more than five years in connection with the 2020 religious riots in the capital New Delhi.
However, the Supreme Court denied bail for two eminent academics, Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam, who will remain in high-security Tihar prison awaiting the start of their trial.
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Shamshad Ahmed’s son Shadab Ahmed was also granted bail on Monday, ending more than five years of painful waiting. Ahmed had been in prison without trial since April 2020.
“We are very elated,” the 67-year-old father told Al Jazeera, his voice overlapping the cheers in the background. “The trial was delayed, but at least justice was not denied.”
“Everyone is happy! Our son is returning home after spending years in prison for the cause of justice,” said the elder Ahmed. “But our hearts sink for Umar and Sharjil. They are also our sons.”
India’s 2019 citizenship law reforms, which Muslims say are discriminatory, have sparked peaceful protests across the country. Muslims, India’s largest ethnic minority with a population of more than 200 million people, have demanded that a secular country like India not allow faith to be the basis for citizenship.
But Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has cracked down on peaceful protesters, arresting hundreds of them, many under “anti-terrorism” laws, and killing dozens.
Political analysts and rights advocates say the long detention without trial of students and rights activists is emblematic of the systematic persecution of Muslims under the Hindu nationalist Modi government.
On Saturday, New York City’s newly elected mayor, Zoran Mamdani, sent a letter to Khalid saying, “We are all thinking of you.”
So what’s the incident? Who are the accused and why has this case been so controversial in India and other countries?
What is the case about?
In 2020, the Modi government amended the citizenship law to facilitate citizenship for persecuted Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan.
Muslims across India have launched protests against their exclusion, with a women-led sit-in in New Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh becoming the center of India’s largest protests in decades.
A right-wing Hindu mob attacked a peaceful sit-in in east Delhi, sparking deadly violence as leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led anti-Muslim rhetoric. More than 50 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in Delhi’s worst violence since anti-Sikh riots in 1984.
In response, police opened 758 criminal cases for investigation and arrested more than 2,000 people. Delhi police, accused of bias against Muslims, accused peaceful protest leaders, many of them young Muslim activists, of creating religious tensions and conspiring to overthrow the elected government, an allegation that was muddled by legal and human rights experts. At least 18 student leaders and activists were arrested in what became known as the “Major Conspiracy Case.”
The students and activists are being charged under an “anti-terrorism” law called the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, making it virtually impossible to secure bail. The law allows authorities to label individuals as “terrorists” and detain them without trial for months or even years.
Indian police have been accused of increasingly using “anti-terrorism” laws against marginalized groups, including Muslims.
Who is the accused?
Of the 18 students and activists arrested in the conspiracy case, six have been released on bail for many years.
Today, the Supreme Court has decided on bail for seven of the defendants. Their brief profiles are as follows:
Umar Khalid: A former research fellow at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), he submitted his doctoral thesis in 2018 titled “Challenging the Claims and Contingency of Rules for Adivasis in Jharkhand”. He is a former leader of the student organization Democratic Student Union (DSU) and a founding member of the campaign United Against Hate.
Sharjeel Imam: Postdoctoral Fellow at JNU Center for Historical Research. He graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, one of the most reputed engineering institutes in India, and worked as a software engineer before returning to the university.
Meeran Haider: Postdoctoral researcher at Jamia Millia Islamia Center for Management Research.
Gulfisha Fatima: MBA graduate engaged in community work and activism. At the time of the protests, she was preparing to become a university lecturer.
Shifa-ur-Rehman: Businesswoman and president of Jamia Millia Islamia Alumni Association. He contested the 2024 Delhi Assembly elections from prison but lost.
Shadab Ahmed: Professional with Bachelor’s degree in Computer Applications (BCA). At the time of the protests, Ahmed was volunteering at a protest site in Delhi.
Saleem Khan: A businessman involved in the export industry. At the time of his arrest, he was running a business, and police say he was an organizer and food provider at the protest venue.
Why is this case so controversial in India?
The conspiracy case and the accused have been cited by civil society as a litmus test for the judiciary itself since New Delhi took a sharp turn toward ultranationalism and authoritarianism under Prime Minister Modi.
Political analysts told Al Jazeera that the case, amid apparently endless court dates, changes in court members and administrative delays, tore apart the “dual nature” of Indian institutions that are biased against Muslims.
Asim Ali, a political commentator in New Delhi, told Al Jazeera that the Modi government had made a calculation after the citizenship protests. “A mobilization like this will never happen again,” he said.
“That protest was a statement by India’s Muslim community that we will take back our citizenship rights and that cannot be taken away easily,” Ali pointed out. “But the government showed that only the government has the right to define who can be a citizen, and they did so by force.”
But the Supreme Court’s refusal to grant bail to Khalid and Imam, two of the more famous students among the detainees, “is like classifying a segment of the population as internal enemies or suspects and treating them with a different kind of law, or rather in the shadow of the law,” Ali said.
Political analyst Rashid Kidwai said Indian courts routinely grant bail to defendants, including hard-core criminals and rapists. “rejection [of bail to Khalid and Imam] The question arises: Are the courts influenced by political narratives? Because if not, there is no reason why these two people should not be granted bail,” he said.
Kidwai said “consistency of laws that are equal for all” is needed for more than a billion Indians to continue to trust the judiciary. And it doesn’t appear to be a case involving a Muslim defendant, he noted.
Why do Mr. Khalid and Mr. Imam remain in prison?
Delivering the order in the High Court in New Delhi on Monday morning, a bench of Justice Aravind Kumar and Justice NV Anjaria said it was not satisfied that the prolonged pre-trial detention of Mr. Khalid and Mr. Imam and the delay in the trial did not act as a “trump card”.
The court noted that the two men were not on an equal footing in the hierarchy of conspiracy charges as others granted bail. The court said there was a prima facie case under the “anti-terrorism” law, saying the two had played a “central and formative role” in the conspiracy and could apply for bail again in a year.
“I feel these judges have been unfairly influenced by government pressure, and there was tremendous pressure from the government not to release them.” [Khalid and Imam]” said Prashant Bhushan, senior Supreme Court advocate and rights campaigner.
Currently, student activists are at a “basic impasse”, Bhushan said, adding: “This incident shows two things: the Modi government is ready to misuse anti-terror laws and investigating agencies, and secondly, the courts are also bowing to the government’s orders.”
“The charges are serious, but there is no substance behind them,” said Bhushan, who looked into the details of the case.
“India under Modi is no longer a democracy,” he said.
What impact did this incident have on India?
Since the protests against the citizenship law and the subsequent crackdown, political observers and leaders say student politics has been delegitimized by design and fear.
Activist and researcher Natasha Narwal, who spent more than a year in prison for the same incident, told Al Jazeera that the government’s crackdown “makes it easy to criminalize any protest that challenges the regime and its policies.”
“There is increased surveillance at universities, and every small activity is scrutinized, from holding seminars, lectures, film screenings and all kinds of gatherings,” Narwal said.
“Even if it is not a criminal case, students will continue to receive show-cause notices and face all types of disciplinary action.”
