The Delhi Police on Thursday informed the Supreme Court that the anti-CAA protests leading up to the 2020 Delhi riots were not peaceful civil demonstrations but part of a “planned conspiracy” involving prominent activists and student leaders. Opposing the bail pleas of Sharjeel Imam, Umar Khalid, Gulfisha Fatima, Meeran Haider, Shifa-ur-Rehman, Mohammad Saleem Khan and Shadab Ahmed, additional solicitor general (ASG) S.V. Raju argued that speeches, WhatsApp chats and witness testimonies clearly indicated a coordinated campaign aimed at “economic blockade” and “regime change”.
Appearing before a bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and N.V. Anjaria, Raju played a montage of video clips allegedly showing Imam calling for blocking the “chicken neck” corridor and proposing strategies to “paralyse Delhi” through chakka jams. The ASG said these speeches revealed a clear intention to cripple essential supply chains such as milk and vegetables, thereby destabilising the capital.
Raju also pointed out that Imam, an engineer by qualification, represented what he described as a growing trend of “intellectuals, doctors and engineers abandoning their professions for anti-national activities”. He further said that the accused often received sympathetic international coverage, especially from foreign media outlets, creating an “intellectual façade” that masked the scale of the conspiracy.
Defence counsel Siddhartha Dave countered that the police were showing selective snippets from hours-long speeches to create prejudice, insisting that the full recordings conveyed a different meaning. The court questioned whether presenting videos at the bail stage amounted to an evaluation of evidence, but Raju maintained that he was only summarising the charge sheet.
The Supreme Court will resume hearing the matter on Friday.
