On 24th August, the Karkardooma Sessions Court in Delhi granted interim bail for 10 days to Meeran Haider, an accused in the larger conspiracy related to the anti-Hindu Delhi Riots of 2020. Haider was a Jamia student and leader of the RJD youth wing. He was arrested in April 2020 in connection with the Delhi riots case on allegations of coordinating efforts to incite violence during the riots.
Meeran had filed a bail plea in the court, requesting bail on humanitarian grounds due to the passing of his sister’s premature child. His lawyer submitted to the court that Meeran’s sister was without the support of other male family members, as her husband works in the UAE. Furthermore, the lawyer submitted that Meeran had been in continuous custody since 1st April 2020, and had not sought interim bail before.
The prosecution, in its reply, stated that the facts mentioned in the bail plea had been verified. They further mentioned that the sister’s husband was, in fact, in India but was leaving for the UAE on Sunday.
After hearing arguments from both sides, Additional Sessions Judge Sameer Bajpayi found it justified to grant the applicant the desired relief. The application was allowed, and Meeran was granted interim bail for ten days.
Several conditions were imposed on Meeran Haider as the court granted him conditional bail for 10 days. The court asked Meeran Haider to not interact with the media or give any statements on social media. Additionally, he is required to keep his phone functional, provide his number to the police and not tamper with evidence.
Who is Meeran Haider
Meeran Haider was one of the founding members of JCC – Jamia Coordination Committee – a group central in the conspiracy behind the 2020 Delhi anti-Hind Riots. Meeran has completed his PhD from Jamia Millia Islamia and holds Engineering and Management degrees. He was earlier a member of the Aam Admi Party. He, along with Khalid Saifi – another accused in the Delhi anti-Hindu Riots, had previously visited Punjab to canvass for votes for AAP. After AAP denied him a ticket for the Municipal Corporation elections, Meeran Haider switched to RLD and became the Delhi State Youth President.
Meeran Haider holds significant importance in the Delhi anti-Hindu riots conspiracy case as detailed in chargesheet 59/2020. According to the initial chargesheet, he is only one of the two people who have been arrested, charge-sheeted only in 59/2020 and no other FIR related to the riots.
Meeran Haider’s role in the 2020 Delhi anti-Hindu riots
Meeran Haider was one of the founding members of the JCC – a group central to the Delhi anti-Hindu riots conspiracy. The group was formed on the 15th of December 2019 – right after anti-CAA violence. It is pertinent to note that the police investigation categorically states that the December violence was phase 1 of the anti-Hindu violence and was unleashed as a test-run for the violence in February 2020. It is pertinent to note that Meeran Haider was arrested on the 1st of April 2020 after his name was taken by Khalid Saifi during his interrogation.
Meeran Haider was instrumental in conspiring with Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam, Khalid Saifi and others to replicate the Shaheen Bagh model in multiple locations across Delhi. On the 23rd of December 2019, Meeran Haider along with Umar Khalid and Khalid Saifi met at Shaheen Bagh to discuss setting up another protest site at Khureji. While Khalid Saifi was tasked to be the administrator of the protest site, Meeran was tasked with delivering provocative speeches at the site. In due course of time, Khureji became one of the hotspots of anti-Hindu violence.
According to the chargesheet, during this meeting with Umar Khalid and Khalid Saifi, Meeran Haider had informed that his contacts in Saudi Arabia were in the process of transferring money for the violence. Meeran Haider was responsible for setting up 24 additional protest sites in less than a month. He was responsible exclusively for the Nizamuddin protest site where he had given a speech inciting Muslims to Chakka Jam. He had also said that if the police stopped them, the protestors were to attack police with weapons. His followers had done exactly that on the 23rd of January 2020.
Meeran was in charge of 8 protest sites in total – Shaheen Bagh, Khureji, Seelampur-Jafarabad, Turkman Gate, Kardampuri, Mustafabad, Rehman Chowk and Inderlok Metro Gate No. 4.
According to the chargesheet, Meeran Haider had received Rs 5 lacs in funding for the violence out of which, Rs 2.33 L was recovered from him after he pointed out where the cash was kept.
The accusation of Meeran Haider using the money to fund violence is not a mere allegation. The chargesheet has included the exact money trail to and from Meeran.
There chargesheet details how Meeran got money from those who live and work in Saudi Arabia and the money was asked by Meeran specifically for the anti-CAA protests, leading to violence. During the investigation, it was found that Meeran had disbursed Rs 2,86,000 to rioters – this included Rs 50,000 given to Amanullah, another accused in the Delhi Riots case.
The Delhi Police has revealed that Meeran Haider was high up in the food chain given that he was demanding compliance reports even from senior conspirators like Safoora Zargar. Further, after certain people in the DPSG group threatened to expose those who were creating violence, Umar Khalid made a flurry of calls – first being to Rahul Roy and the next, being to Meeran Haider. It was after the call from Umar Khalid that Meeran Haider, along with others, went to the Delhi Police HQ trying to convince them to hold a press conference where the blame for the violence was squarely placed on the police and not the rioters and conspirators.
The chargesheet reveals that Meeran Haider was involved in the Delhi Riots conspiracy since December 2019. At the Jamia Millia Islamia campus, a room was allocated to JCC where meetings were held about the ways to sustain the protests. After the meetings, core conspirators like Meeran Haider, Safoora Zargar, Asif Iqbal Tanha etc used to meet to conspire – this revelation was made by a protected witness.
What Meeran Haider said in his disclosure statements
The first disclosure statement was given by Meeran Haider on the 2nd of April 2020 during interrogation. In this statement, he disclosed the exact location of his phone and the diary he maintained (this is the diary from which the details of the money spent were recovered as well). He revealed that it was the same mobile phone through which he was a part of all the WhatsApp groups used for coordination and planning of the Delhi violence. After this disclosure by Meeran Haider, the police had gone to his house, which he was sharing with one “Irshad” and recovered the phone and the diary as disclosed by Haider.
In the disclosure statement on the same day when he was interrogated (2nd April 2020), Meeran disclosed that he has intimately been a part of all the anti-CAA violent protests. He discloses that on the 15th of December, he was instrumental in taking out the protest march which turned violent, admitting to burning a bus and also indulging in violence against police officers. The next day, on the 16th, a group was made in which he was there along with many others like Umar Khalid, Khalid Saifi, Shifa Rehman, Natasha Narwal, Devangana and others. He says that it was on the instruction of JCC (Of which Umar Khalid was a part) that he would set up protest sites and specifically give inciting speeches.
He discloses that he has known Umar Khalid since the JNU case (where seditious slogans were raised) in 2016.
He admits in the disclosure statement that in the JCC there were conversations about Shaheen Bagh being a pilot project to be replicated in other protest sites. He says that they knew police would not be able to remove the protestors from sites – just like they did not in Shaheen Bagh. If they attempt to remove protestors, then they have to be ready to attack the police with stones and weapons so that a message is sent across India and thereafter, the police do not try to remove protestors again.
He said the roads were all blocked at the instruction of JCC, of which he was a part, and it was a planned conspiracy to create violence in different locations.
He says that PFI had also funded and helped the violence.
In his supplementary disclosure statement, Meeran Haider says that he has been a part of United Against Hate (a group led by Khalid Saifi) since 2017.
He says in his statement that Umar Khalid had several times in the past spoken about protesting against the “anti-Muslim” government (Modi govt) on every issue. He further says that Khalid Saifi had spoken several times about protesting against every decision of the Modi government and eventually establishing Ghazwa-e-Hind.
He said that all of them were in touch with several individuals from PFI, AISA, SIO and even NSUI – NSUI is the student body of Congress – and that they were being offered help regularly by these organisations.
Meeran said that in their conversations, it was a given that PFI would fund their protests and violence.
When they found out about the visit of Donald Trump to India, they believed it would be a good opportunity to put their plans into motion. He says that the protest sites in Muslim-dominated areas were already identified. It was per this conspiracy that Umar Khalid delivered his speech in Amravati and Yvatamal, appealing to Muslims to come out on the streets during the visit of Donald Trump. They blocked roads on purpose to create violence. He details how he was instructed to create protest sites and give speeches inciting Muslims.
Interestingly, he discloses that he was collecting money from Muslims in the name of Zakat – to be used to pay rioters and maintain the protest sites as well.
On the 6th of April, Meeran Haider disclosed more facts.
Meeran Haider further says that he had also collected money in the name of personal expenses, and then that money was used to pay rioters and those instigating the violence. He further says that he could not distribute all the money because the police stopped the violence earlier than expected.
In the initial chargesheet filed pertaining to FIR 59/2020, the Delhi Police dedicate almost 700 pages to the chronology of the conspiracy hatched. Confirming what OpIndia had already pointed out earlier, the February riots were inextricably linked to the December violence that was unleashed in various parts of the country such as Delhi, UP and other places.
What is interesting in the chargesheet, is that the Delhi Police have managed to piece together the conspiracy right from the 5th of December, a day after the Citizenship Amendment Bill was tabled in both houses of the parliament.
The 13th of December marked the first incident of violence in Delhi after Islamists and Leftists had gotten together in the name of their protest against CAA.
On the 13th of December, the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act took a communal turn in Delhi after ‘students’ of the controversial Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) University resorted to mob violence against the police officials and shouted Islamic slogans “Allah-o-Akbar” during their protests. Video had even surfaced where Jamia Millia Islamia University students can be seen raising ‘Allaho Akbar’ and ‘Nara-e-Taqbeer’ slogans. They are also heard saying, “Ye shahar zagmagaega, nur-e-la-illaha se, Ye desh zagmagaega, nur-e-la-ilaha se.Nara-e-takbir, Allahu Akbar”. The ‘students’ of the Jamia Millia Islamia University in Delhi were also seen abusing police with provocative words as they used tear gas to disperse the violent mob.
In another video that was shared by one of the radical Islamic groups called Tehzeeb Committee of Jamia Millia Islamia College, a ‘student’ can be seen making communal and provocative statements by claiming that ‘those who want to protect Muslims will have to protect Islam’. There were also several provocative statements that demanded Muslims to take to the streets. The “speech” was followed by a worrying slogan, “tera mera rishta kya, La ilahi illilah”. Similar statements were heard in Kashmir with respect to Pakistan by terrorists where they chanted “Pakistan se rishta kya, La ilahi illilah”.
As the police began to lathi-charge the students to calm down the situation, the protestors resorted to stone-pelting against these police officials.
According to the chargesheet, in this incident, 20 policemen were injured. The chargesheet says that this incident of violence was a direct result of the conspiracy being hatched since earlier in December and Sharjeel Imam, Asif Iqbal Tanha and others were directly involved. They also believe that Sharjeel’s spectacles were broken during the violence.
When the violence in JMI had erupted, several media houses and other motivated intellectuals alleged that the violence merely happened because the police were being high-handed in the face of peaceful protests. However, with the entire chronology up until the 13th of December, it is rather clear that the Islamist students were prepared for the violence since they knew the police would stop them from reaching the parliament. It is also clear that the Muslim students did not come together organically but there was a deep-rooted conspiracy behind the coming together of these organisations in which, elements like Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam and Yogendra Yadav were equally involved.
It is important to note here that Umar Khalid, Yogendra Yadav and Sharjeel Imam were in the same group and had met each other personally on days before the violence at Jamia. Sharjeel had, in fact, also said on the 7th of December that in the next week, they were planning something big. Further, Yogendra Yadav and others had an elaborate secret meeting in a basement on the 8th of December and thereafter, Sharjeel was given the responsibility of mobilisation and also, they were all in the same team called ‘CAB TEAM’.
Throughout December, January and even February, before the anti-Hindu riots, OpIndia documented widespread violence against Hindus from various parts of the country. Along with the violence, several speeches were delivered that exhorted Muslims to take to the streets and inflamed passions with misinformation, half-truths and whole lies.
Finally, on the 23rd of February, the Delhi anti-Hindu riots broke out, with several people losing their lives. We reported tales of horror – of Ankit Sharma being brutally stabbed multiple times, of Dilbar Negi’s limbs being chopped off and the rest of him being burnt alive, of women from Chand Bagh saying their daughters were stripped and sent home amidst sexual taunts from Muslim rioters and Muslim owned schools being used as terror launch pads. The chargesheets in the Delhi Riots conspiracy case trace, with painstaking details, how a widespread conspiracy led to the carnage specifically targeted against Hindus.
