'Bond, Romeo, Juliet' & WhatsApp group chats: Why Umar Khalid was denied bail in Delhi riots case

New Delhi: Statements by protected witnesses, including ‘Bond’, ‘Romeo’ and ‘Juliet’, as well as WhatsApp group chats — these are some of the reasons a Delhi court Thursday rejected Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student Umar Khalid’s bail application in the 2020 Northeast Delhi riots conspiracy case, one and a half years after his arrest.  In his order, Additional Sessions Judge Amitabh Rawat opined that “there are reasonable grounds for believing that the accusations against the accused Umar Khalid are prima facie true”. To reach this conclusion, the Karkardooma court relied on statements of several protected witnesses, though also noting that there are “some inconsistencies” in them.  Both the charge sheet and court order rely on statements made witnesses protected under aliases — ‘Bond’, ‘Saturn’, ‘Smith’, ‘Echo’, ‘Sierra’, ‘Helium’, ‘Crypton’, ‘Johny’, ‘Pluto’, ‘Sodium’, ‘Radium’, ‘Gama’, ‘Delta’, ‘Beeta’, ‘Neon’, ‘Hotel’, ‘Romeo’ and ‘Juliet’ (sic). The charge sheet and court order also rely heavily on WhatsApp chats from various groups like ‘Delhi Protect Support Group’ (DPSG), ‘Jamia Co-ordination Committee’ (JCC), ‘Muslim Students of Jamia’ (MSJ), and ‘Pinjra Tod’, which are common between Khalid and his co-accused.  The court also rejected the contention that Khalid was not in Delhi during the riots, noting that “in…
Read More