Activists condemn the arrest of Dr. Umar Khalid; demand his immediate release

New Delhi: Prominent artists and activists include among those who condemned the arrest of Dr. Umar Khalid, who was allegedly implicated in the Delhi riot case charge sheet.

Signatories, including writer Arundhati Roy, filmmaker Saeed Mirza, singer TM Krishna, historian Ramchandra Guha, senior advocate Prashant Bhushan, P. Sainath and others, denounced the Delhi police move and said that the investigation of the Delhi police is "not about the violence in February 2020 in the national capital, but on the completely peaceful and democratic protests across the country against the unconstitutional CAA."

The statement also said that Dr. Umar was one of the hundreds of voices that spoke up in favour of the Constitution across the country during the anti-CAA protests.

"Umar Khalid has emerged as a strong and powerful voice of young Indians in favour of the Constitution and of democracy. The repeated attempts by the Delhi police to implicate him in a number of fictitious cases of conspiracty for the Delhi violence are part of a brazen to try to suppress his voice of dissent," the statement said.

The statement pointed out that of the 20 arrested by the Delhi police, 19 are under the age of 31. Of which 17 have been charged under the draconian UAPA and have been imprisoned on charges of a conspiracy for the Delhi violence where as those who actually instigated and participated in the violence has not been touched.

Of the ones incarcerated, five are women, except for one all are also students, the statement said.