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New Delhi : Student activist Umar Khalid said nearly six years in jail without trial have \u201cwreaked havoc on my mind and body\u201d, but his opposition to Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s government remains unchanged.<\/p>\n
According to Kashmir Media Service, in his first interview from Delhi\u2019s Tihar Jail since September 2020 arrest, the 38-year-old told The Guardian that \u201chumanity is a privilege that is not granted to people like me\u201d. Prisoner No. 626714 said evenings are hardest as \u201canother day of your life has been spent in captivity\u201d, a feeling he noted Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky described in his prison memoir.<\/p>\n
Khalid was arrested under India\u2019s terrorism laws and accused by Delhi Police of being a \u201ckey conspirator\u201d in the February 2020 Delhi riots and conspiring to bring \u201cviolent regime change\u201d. He calls the charges \u201cdystopian\u201d and denies them, stating he was 1,600 km away when violence broke out. Of 53 killed, most were Muslim.<\/p>\n
Rising to prominence after a 2016 sedition case at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Khalid became a central voice in 2019 protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC). While co-accused got bail, his applications have been repeatedly delayed or denied, with no trial date set.<\/p>\n
\u201cEndlessly dashed hopes for freedom have been quite heartbreaking,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New Delhi : Student activist Umar Khalid said nearly six years in jail without trial have \u201cwreaked havoc on my mind and body\u201d, but his opposition to Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s government remains unchanged. According to Kashmir Media Service, in his first interview from Delhi\u2019s Tihar Jail since September 2020 arrest, the 38-year-old told The …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":204236,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-204235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-india"],"yoast_head":"\n