India’s Supreme Court on Monday denied bail to two Muslim student activists, Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam, who have spent about five years in detention without trial in a conspiracy case linked to the 2020 Delhi riots.
The court’s decision came as it weighed arguments about the length of their pretrial detention and the role it said they played in the alleged conspiracy behind the violence. The court said Khalid and Imam had a “central role in the conspiracy” and that the delay in their trial was not a sufficient ground for granting them bail, according to a verdict report carried by Bar and Bench.
AP reported that Khalid and Imam were arrested five years ago under India’s state security law and accused of conspiring to incite communal violence that swept parts of Delhi in February 2020. The riots left 53 people dead, most of them Muslims, and the violence unfolded amid months-long protests against a controversial 2019 citizenship law that critics said discriminated against Muslims.
While bail was granted to the other five accused in the same case, the Supreme Court said Khalid and Imam stood on a “qualitatively different footing” compared with the other defendants. Prosecutors representing Delhi police had opposed the bail requests, arguing that the violence was not a spontaneous outbreak but a deliberate plot and that Khalid and Imam made provocative speeches and instigated violence.
Khalid and Imam’s lawyers, AP reported, argue that there is no evidence linking them to the violence and deny the charges. AP also said dozens of other Muslims were charged in similar cases related to the riots and held in prolonged detention, and that some later unraveled because police were unable to provide evidence linking many detainees to the riots.
AP reported that Khalid and Imam had been leading voices in nationwide protests against the citizenship law, which marked what critics described as one of the most significant challenges to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government. In the months after the riots, police charged several activists and organizers, including Khalid and Imam, under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, or UAPA.
UAPA, AP said, has historically been used to quell violent insurgencies, but has been “largely used to silence political opposition” under Modi, according to the report. AP added that activists targeted under the law can be held in pretrial detention almost indefinitely, often leading to years in custody until trial concludes.
The ruling has continued to draw international scrutiny. AP reported that last week eight U.S. lawmakers wrote to India’s ambassador in Washington expressing concern over Khalid’s prolonged pretrial detention and urged Indian authorities to grant him a fair and timely trial.
International human rights groups have also repeatedly urged Khalid and Imam’s release, AP said, arguing that their detention suppresses dissent and breaches fundamental legal protections. In a statement last year, Amnesty International said Khalid’s “imprisonment without trial exemplifies derailment of justice” and is “emblematic of a broader pattern of repression faced by those who dare to exercise their rights to freedom of expression,” AP reported.