February 23 marks five years since the riots broke out in India’s national capital Delhi in 2020. At least 53 people were killed and several hundred were injured in the violence which was centered around the city’s densely populated north-eastern areas. Thousands of people were displaced while property worth millions was destroyed. The riots marked a crucial point in Indian politics especially amid a strengthening of the right-wing and fascist forces in the country.
Even after five years, justice has eluded most of the victims of the violence, while dozens of activists have been swept up in cases related to the riots. Activists and opposition parties, meanwhile, have accused the Delhi Police and the justice system of working in a biased and unfair manner. They allege that the police and courts are working under pressure from the ruling party which has weaved a narrative portraying the victims as culprits and vice versa. As the Delhi Police falls under India’s Home Ministry led by Amit Shah, leader of ultra-right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) many have accused the BJP of benefiting from both the riots and the narrative it has woven around them.
But why did the Delhi riots take place and in what context?
CAA, NRC, and the Delhi riots
Beginning in 2019, India witnessed nationwide protests against the BJP government’s attempts to implement Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizenship (NRC). Large sections of Indian society claimed that the two initiatives violated the secular principles of India’s constitution while offering citizenship on the basis of religion.
CAA provides Indian citizenship to persons of any religious dispensation, except Islam, if they can prove they have been persecuted on religious grounds in the countries of the region. NRC, if implemented, would require most Indians to prove their citizenship. Many believe this would jeopardize the citizenship rights of Indian Muslims, especially the poor who often do not possess all the papers to ‘prove’ their citizenship.
Those who opposed them saw CAA and NRC as part of BJP’s larger politics of Hindutva, Hindu nationalism, and majoritarianism.
The mass protest movement against the CAA-NRC was seen by many as the first major popular challenge to the BJP central government. As Pavan Kulkarni wrote in Peoples Dispatch in 2021, “What began as protests and rallies by students against this agenda, evolved into numerous sit-in protests, many of which were led by women, across the country, after the Delhi Police unleashed brutal violence against students, barging into the campus of Jamia Millia Islamia, one of the India’s most reputed universities, and assaulting even those studying in the library.”
The brutal repression of students strengthened the resolve of people in cities across India to resist the BJP’s CAA and NRC, and by January 2020, there were around 40 sit-ins across the country, with 10 in New Delhi. The largest of such sit-ins was in Shaheen Bagh.
The tension in the capital was heightened with the legislative assembly elections on February 8 as many BJP candidates used their electoral campaign to demonize the protest movement and vow to crush it. One such case was government minister Anurag Thakur, who is accused of directly inciting violence against protesters while trying to mobilize support for his party and the unpopular CAA and NRC, raising the slogan “shoot down the traitors who betray the country” to crowds.
On February 23, the incitement of violence was taken a step further when senior BJP leader Kapil Mishra went to a protest site and gave a provocative speech demanding the withdrawal of the protests and threatening violence otherwise. The riots broke out hours later. Of the 53 fatal victims, two-thirds were Muslim. Some were shot, others set on fire, and some slashed repeatedly. Muslim businesses and mosques were also set on fire.
Watch: Delhi riots: Survivors tell their stories
A fact-finding committee report submitted by the Delhi minorities commission in 2020 had claimed that violence was incited with a plan to disrupt the ongoing protests against CAA and NRC.
Kapil Mishra becomes the Minister of Law and Justice of Delhi
Mishra, who is largely attributed with directly instigating the riots on February 23 was sworn in as the Minister of Law and Justice in Delhi’s newly-elected BJP government on Thursday February 20.
The BJP won the Delhi legislative elections held earlier this month, defeating the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Mishra secured the victory by winning one of the constituent areas that was affected by the 2020 Delhi riots.
Mishra became minister despite a recent observation by a local court stating that Delhi police completely failed to take appropriate action over the complaints filed against him following his speech. The court advised the complainant to approach the MP/MLA court (a special court handling cases against Members of Parliament and Members of the Legislative Assembly) to seek the registration of a First Information Report (FIR) against him.
Bias and delays in Delhi riots investigations and legal proceedings
The courts have regularly observed since the riots in 2020 that police have failed to do their duty of law enforcement. They have also commented that police did not file correct charge sheets in several cases, conducted shoddy investigations and in some cases, deliberately avoided filing cases against known offenders which ultimately let the culprits escape justice.
The Delhi Minority Commission Report also accused the Delhi police of unreliable and biased investigations which ultimately led to real culprits getting away and innocent people, mainly from the minority community, being charged for crimes they did not commit. The police deliberately charged people with draconian laws such as the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act so that they could be kept in prison for a longer period. It also claimed that Delhi Police directly participated in the violence against minorities in certain places, which has been verified in several other reports since then.
The role of the courts has also come under scrutiny. The justice system has been slow in disposing of cases and has deliberately denied bail to some of the known activists who were charged for alleged conspiracy for the violence and charged under UAPA provisions.
As per a report in the National Herald in November, nearly 2,600 people were arrested in over 750 different cases related to Delhi riots. By November, the courts had only found close to 50 people guilty of any crimes. They released over 2,000 people on bail.
Most of those who have been denied bail are activists who helped organize anti-CAA and anti-NRC protests including Umar Khalid, Khalid Saifi, Sharjeel Imam, Gulfisha Fatima and several others. Most of them have spent nearly five years behind bars with courts repeatedly postponing their bail hearing. In Umar Khalid’s case, several judges have been transferred mid-hearing, while some have recused themselves.
Five years since the Delhi riots, justice has not only been denied to the victims, but it has been weaponized against those who rose up to defend their basic rights.
