US lawmakers urge India to grant bail to student activist Umar Khalid
New Delhi: A group of US lawmakers has expressed “continued concern” over the prolonged pre-trial detention of student activist and scholar Umar Khalid and urged Indi that he be granted bail.
According to Kashmir Media Service, Members of the US Congress and Senate in a letter written to India’s Ambassador in Washington, Vinay Mohan Kwatra, said Umar Khalid’s confinement in jail for nearly five years in connection with the February 2020 northeast Delhi violence “raises serious questions about due process, human rights and India’s obligations under international law”.
The letter has been signed by senior Democratic leaders, including Congressman James P. McGovern and Jamie Raskin, Senators Chris Van Hollen and Peter Welch, and Congress members Pramila Jayapal, Jan Schakowsky, Rashida Tlaib and Lloyd Doggett.
Besides Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam, Gulfisha Fatima, Meera Haider, Shifa Ur Rehman and Muhammad Saleem Khan are in jail for over five years.
The US lawmakers said both countries, as the world’s largest democracies, shared a common responsibility to uphold freedom, rule of law, human rights and pluralism. “It is in this spirit that we raise the following concerns,” the letter said.
The lawmakers traced the origins of the case to the protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) passed in late-2019, which, they noted, were described by a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights as “fundamentally discriminatory”. They said rights organisations, legal experts and the international media had consistently questioned the fairness of the investigations and trials. The lawmakers argued that the invocation of terrorism charges against Khalid rested on “secret witnesses and misconstrued speech”, and pointed out that independent rights investigations had found no evidence linking him to terror activity.
While noting the matter was currently under consideration before the Supreme Court, the lawmakers welcomed the temporary bail granted to Khalid for sister’s wedding.
