Delhi riots: HC asks police to show videos of Pinjra Tod member making instigating speeches
New Delhi: The Delhi High Court Friday asked Delhi Police to show the videos of a member of Pinjra Tod group, a women's collective, allegedly making instigating speeches during the communal violence in northeast Delhi early this year.
The police, however, said they do not have the videos of the time when the group's member Devangana Kalita, a JNU student, was allegedly making instigating speeches during the riots incident.
The police said it has the videos of her allegedly instigating people before the riots took place on February 24 and 25 and also of February 22 and 23 when a large gathering was sitting and protesting outside Jafrabad metro station in northeast Delhi against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).
While hearing the arguments on Kalita's bail plea in a case related to the communal violence in Delhi during protests against the CAA, Justice Suresh Kumar Kait said, Show me any portion of the speech recorded by the media or anyone else which showed that Kalita instigated the mob to commit the crime.
During that period, the media was everywhere and recording everything, the court said. I want to know what she said which instigated the mob, the judge said.
Additional Solicitor General (ASG) S V Raju, appearing for the police, said there was no media on February 25 when the incident happened and the witness accounts showed Kalita's role in instigating the mob.
When the law officer stated that Kalita's call detail records showed her location to be that spot, the judge said even she has admitted that she was there.
It was well planned and organised at a time when US President Donald Trump was to come here. It was done to damage the image of the country. Public property was destroyed and a large number of people were injured and one person died, the ASG argued while opposing the bail plea.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing Kalita, said the police was not showing any instigation or speeches allegedly given by her but was only relying on statements of others recorded under the CrPC.
The counsel shared a video with the court to show that the police were recording the protest and said the officials were still not showing any videos to the court.
Accused in not a politician. She is an academician and a research scholar. She has already been granted bail in two cases. Let the police show us the video and the hate speech. The police are not showing us that there is any possibility of her fleeing from justice, Sibal submitted.
The high court, after hearing the arguments, reserved its order on the plea challenging a trial court's order which had dismissed Kalita's bail application.
During the hearing, the ASG said it was a case where a large number of persons were involved and it is not possible that everyone comes in video footage and the evidence showed that Kalita was involved in the riots.
Countering Sibal's arguments, he said the academic record of a person is not required for considering bail and it is the nature of the offence which is required to be seen for bail and whether she can tamper with the evidence.
Others are poor illiterate ladies who were instigated to turn violent. They were given false statements. It was a case of conspiracy and violation of section 144 CrPC order. Poor people were misled by her that they will be thrown out of the country, Raju contended.
He added they are very clever operators. She is educated and knows the law, so she also knows how to evade the law. It is a very case.
When the court asked the investigating officer in the case whether he had recorded the speech given by Kalita, he said there was a mob of 10,000 people and even media persons were not there and that she was making the statement a kilometre away.
If she was 1 km away, how did you manage to hear what she was saying, the judge asked. To this, the IO replied the SHO who had gone near Kalita had heard her making an instigating speech.
Kalita and another member of the group Natasha Narwal were arrested in the case in May by the Crime Branch of the Delhi police and booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code including rioting, unlawful assembly and attempt to murder.
They have also been booked under the stringent anti-terror law - Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in a separate case related to the communal violence, for allegedly being part of a "premeditated conspiracy" in the riots.
Communal clashes had broken out in northeast Delhi on February 24 after violence between citizenship law supporters and protesters spiralled out of control leaving at least 53 people dead and around 200 injured.
In all, four cases have been registered against her, including in relation to the northeast Delhi riots earlier this year and violence in old Delhi's Daryaganj area during protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in December last year.
Kalita has secured bail in two cases -- Daryaganj and one northeast Delhi matter.
On June 14, a trial court had dismissed Kalita's bail plea on the ground that there was no merit in the application and that it was amply clear from the charge sheet that the investigation was still pending and it has been filed against other accused persons also
Pinjra Tod (Break the Cage) was founded in 2015 to make hostels and paying guest accommodations less restrictive for women students.
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Huge turnout amidst SIR shadow caps ballistic battle for Bengal
Kolkata (PTI): The West Bengal assembly polls ended on Wednesday with what the election watchdog said was the state's highest-ever voter turnout of 92.84 per cent, leading to mouth-watering anticipation ahead of the announcement of results on Monday as both contenders sounded sanguine about their victory prospects.
Wednesday's second phase saw a 92.48 per cent turnout. The concluding phase covering 142 constituencies in south Bengal appears poised to match the first phase's record voter participation of 93.19 per cent by the time final numbers are collated.
The figures put the combined poll percentage over the two-phases at 92.84 per cent. The first phase of polling was held on April 23.
"This is the highest-ever recorded poll participation since Independence in West Bengal," it said.
The capital Kolkata recorded a turnout of 88.59 per cent, with Purba Bardhaman district topping the charts at 93.78 per cent.
The scale of participation sent out an overarching political message — practically every single eligible voter in the state felt personally invested in the electoral process and its outcome. They turned out in numbers large enough to make every narrative contested and every claim of momentum politically loaded. If the first phase tested whether the BJP could retain its north Bengal citadel, the second and final round was always the real battle for the saffron party on whether it could breach the ruling TMC’s southern fortress of Kolkata, Howrah, Hooghly, Nadia, North and South 24 Parganas and Purba Bardhaman.
At the centre of the larger political fight stood Bhabanipur, no longer merely a south Kolkata constituency but Banerjee’s political refuge, her emotional home turf and the BJP’s chosen psychological battlefield.
Banerjee, 71, seeking a fourth consecutive term after 15 years in power, faced Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari in a prestige battle widely seen as a symbolic rematch of Nandigram, where Adhikari had defeated her in 2021 after crossing over from the TMC to the BJP.
Five years later, the duel shifted to Banerjee’s own bastion. For the TMC, retaining Bhabanipur is about protecting the chief minister’s authority in her own backyard. For the BJP, breaching it would puncture the aura of invincibility around Bengal’s most powerful political figure.
The constituency witnessed nearly 87 per cent polling, sharply up from around 61 per cent in the 2021 assembly polls and 57 per cent in the bypoll that brought Banerjee back to the House.
Banerjee – who usually votes later in the day and prefers staying indoors on the day of polls – broke convention and hit the ground before 8 am, moving through Chetla, Padmapukur and Chakraberia areas following complaints of alleged intimidation of local TMC leaders.
As she sat outside a booth amid heavy deployment of central forces, Adhikari arrived there and declared, "I will not allow any hooliganism." He opposed Banerjee moving around with "50-60 people" with her.
Banerjee accused the BJP of trying to "rig" the election by using central forces, election observers and officials.
"The BJP wants to rig this election. Polls in Bengal are usually peaceful. Is there a goonda raj here?" she said, alleging intimidation of TMC polling agents and late-night visits by CRPF personnel to party workers’ homes.
"The atrocities by the central forces are unprecedented. What is happening is not at all free and fair polls. But despite all this, we have full faith that we will win," she said after casting her vote.
Adhikari dismissed the charges as "frustration", claiming Banerjee had realised that "not a single vote was coming her way".
Tension flared again in Kalighat when Adhikari visited another booth, and TMC workers raised slogans against him. Police resorted to a lathi-charge to disperse the crowd as BJP supporters answered with counter-slogans. Reports of sporadic tension were also received from some other areas amid sights of long queues at polling stations, booth-level flare-ups, and political bickering.
In Kolkata's Entally, BJP candidate Priyanka Tibrewal alleged that the TMC's polling agents tried to assault her after she objected to overcrowding inside a booth and a lack of voter privacy.
In Panihati, BJP candidate and the R G Kar victim's mother, Ratna Debnath, faced protests, while her party colleague in Basanti, Bikash Sardar, alleged that "200 to 250 TMC goons" attacked his vehicle and assaulted his driver.
The TMC, meanwhile, accused the central forces of exercising brute force on the general voters at Falta's Belsingha village, especially women, who were beaten up during a move to disperse a crowd from near a polling station.The party also alleged CAPF high-handedness on women and a four-year-old child at Sathachhia in Howrah and on villagers at Ausgram in Purba Bardhaman district.
"In the name of ensuring security, central force jawans are not sparing even women who were brutally lathi-charged. TMC protests this highhandedness of the male jawans who exercised brute force on unarmed villagers. We draw the EC's attention to such illegal actions of the CAPF and ask the poll body to issue cease-and-desist orders against such use of force. We believe, people of Bengal will respond to this on EVMs," Anirban Banerjee, party spokesperson, said.
The BJP alleged that in several polling stations in Falta, the option to vote for the party was blocked using a tape over EVM poll buttons, and demanded repolls in the affected booths.
The state’s Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Agarwal said repolling was likely to be announced in booths where EVMs were found tampered with. However, the order will only be issued after authorities receive reports from the district election officer or election observers regarding allegations of EVM tampering, such as using tapes or a blot of ink, he said.
