Digvijaya says bail becomes ‘exception’ for Muslims, demands release of Umar, others

New Delhi: Senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh on Tuesday said bail becomes an exception when the affected party is a Muslim, as he joined the families of some jailed activists including former JNU research scholar Umar Khalid to demand their release.

He was referring to the recent Supreme Court observation that ‘bail is a rule and jail is an exception’.

At a panel discussion organised by the Association for Protection of Civil Rights (APCR) here to mark four years of the arrest of several activists linked to the anti-CAA-NRC protests in 2019-20, Singh also launched an attack at the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), saying it has made Muslims in India its target just as Jews were on target during Hitler’s rule in Germany.

While expressing solidarity with the jailed activists, Singh said he comes from an area where the RSS is referred to as a “nursery”.

“I have always known them closely. They believe neither in democracy nor in the Constitution. The way Hitler made Jews his target, they have made Muslims their target… The way the ideology has infiltrated at every level, it is dangerous for democracy,” he said.

“The RSS is an unregistered body, it has no membership, no account. If someone is caught, they refuse to accept him as their member, as they did when Nathuram Godse was arrested. They’ve have penetrated everywhere in the system… We need to do a serious introspection,” he said.

“Bail is a rule, and jail is an exception, then what is the reason that for Muslims, bail becomes an exception?” he asked.

Umar Khalid’s father SQR Ilyas, meanwhile, raised concerns over stringent laws such as the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act under which Khalid and others have been arrested.

“Whether it is Umar, or Gulfisha or those arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case… These draconian laws framed inside Parliament are meant to curb terror, but they are used against common people. The BJP brought POTA, the Congress scrapped it, but then brought back all its provisions under the UAPA,” Ilyas said.

He questioned why action is not taken against police officials concerned when a person is found to be innocent after years of trial. He also mocked the use of names like “Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta” for witnesses being used by Delhi Police in the case.

Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya said the activists who continue to be in jails will one day be seen as “warriors of democracy”.

“Those arrested during the Emergency were seen as the warriors of democracy, it is the same case today,” he said.

He also said that the anti-CAA/NRC protests of Shaheen Bagh was not just a protest against the citizenship law, but an “equal citizenship movement”.

“The country has become like an open air prison,” he said.

Nargis Saifi, the wife on jailed activist Khalid Saifi, also questioned the “selective application” of the “bail is the rule, jail is the exception” principle and said her children are growing up without a father.

“Khalid raised his voice for his rights, so he was jailed. He has not been given bail even after four-and-a-half years, while those charged for rape, corruption, are being let out on bail,” she said.

Shakra Begum, the mother of Gulfisha Fatima, one of the activists who participated in the protests and was arrested for alleged conspiracy in the Delhi riots, broke down, and said she did not have the courage to speak.

Another jailed activist Athar Khan’s mother Noorjahan said she has not been allowed to talk to her son on a video call for one-and-a-half-year now.

“Someone did a hunger strike in the jail, and my son was blamed for it. They have not allowed us video calls for a year and half. His grandmothers are old, they can’t visit him in the jail. Now they can’t see him on video calls either,” she said.

Actor Swara Bhasker, stand-up comic Kunal Kamra, and Sanjay Rajoura also expressed solidarity with the jailed activists.

Sharjeel Imam, Khalid Saifi, Umar Khalid and others have been booked under the anti-terror law UAPA and provisions of the Indian Penal Code for allegedly being the “masterminds” of the February 2020 riots in North-East Delhi which left 53 people dead and over 700 injured.

Communal clashes broke out in northeast Delhi on February 24, 2020, after violence between supporters of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and those against the legislation spiralled out of control, leaving at least 53 people dead and around 200 injured.