Pregnant sociology student at Jamia Millia Islamia Safoora Zargar will walk out of Tihar Jail after 74 days.
She had been booked under the draconian anti-terror Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).
She may have been perfectly within her rights to take part in the anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act protests, but her role is seen to have facilitated the disgraceful northeast Delhi riots by the government.
Hence the government’s unexpected “humanitarian grounds” concession that resulted in the grant of bail to her by the Delhi high court she had been denied bail three times before raises not a few questions.
First, was it publicity and pressure from civil society and various national and international rights organisations that led to her bail?
Pertinently, the Delhi police have gone on record to claim that Ms Zargar’s pregnancy does not dilute the gravity of her offence. Yet till the other day, they had been citing 39 deliveries inside the capital’s prison facilities as proof that she would be well taken care of.
What changed their minds?
Second, did the police use the cover of the Covid-19 lockdown to crack down on CAA dissenters in the guise of the sham riots investigation? A large number of complaints filed by residents from northeast Delhi have been ignored these include the names of several BJP leaders, the most prominent of whom is Kapil Mishra against whom there is recorded evidence of instigating violence.
But Jamia Millia Islamia’s Meeran Haider, Shifa-ur-Rehman and Asif Iqbal Tanha, and JNU’s Umar Khalid and Natasha Narwal are in jail.
Finally, the lower courts had denied Ms Zargar bail citing as grounds Section 43D(5) of the UAPA. Yet that section requires prima facie evidence of terrorist activity against Ms Zargar for the court to arrive at this decision.
Of this there is none. Had this dubious concession not been made, would the high court have looked into the merits of her case?
Did the government have a vested interest against the grant of bail to Ms Zargar on merits because it would have weakened their cases against Mr Haider, Mr Khalid and others and no longer let it obfuscate the facts behind the February riots? This newspaper raises that question.
