Delhi riots chargesheet says women protesters paid ‘daily wages’, used for ‘gender cover’

The chargesheet also states that the women were used by the accused for a "secular cover, gender cover and media cover".(File)

Women protesting against the CAA at locations such as Shaheen Bagh and near Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) were paid “daily wages” by alleged conspirators behind the Northeast Delhi riots, the Delhi Police chargesheet filed at Karkardooma court last week states. The chargesheet also states that the women were used by the accused for a “secular cover, gender cover and media cover”.

“Shifa-Ur-Rehman (Jamia coordination committee member and president of Alumni Association of JMI) and others collected funds predominantly in cash and also in bank accounts and funded this sustenance of various sit-in protest sites by providing logistics and daily wages to lady protesters. AAJMI also provided mic, poster, banners, ropes, etc at gate number 7 of Jamia Millia protest site. AAJMI also paid for buses hired for protests. The daily expenditure of AAJMI ranged between Rs 5,000- 10,000 at protest site of Jamia gate number 7 alone,” it states.

Police claim to have established this based on statements of witnesses and WhatsApp chats.

Police also sought to draw a distinction between the February riots and the protests and violence near Jamia Millia Islamia in December 2019, saying that the latter was a “precursor riot” to the Northeast Delhi violence that killed 53.

Spelling out key differences, police claimed Jamia and Shaheen Bagh were “deliberately avoided by rioters” during the February riots, and “women at the forefront (both local and transplanted) were the universal underlying theme of the protest in February 2020, as against the incidents of December 2019”.

Police claimed the 2019 “precursor riots” could “not generate nationwide traction”, hence the alleged conspirators resorted to “masking these protests with the secular facade, providing mass based and more acceptable civil society participation and also to exploit women and children as a shield while facing the police”.

Police claimed that this “experience of the key conspirators from half-baked success and failures over the past two weeks (in December) made them realise that in order to achieve their true objectives, there was need for a secular cover, gender cover and media cover”.

“The whole of the analytics corroborates and reinforces the investigative findings that in spite of best efforts being put in by the key conspirators, the incidents of December 2019 remained a beta version of the carnage of February 2020. The key conspirators had learnt their lessons drawn from December 2019, and while executing the continuing conspiracy in February 2020, chose Northeast Delhi with its unique economic, social and demographic matrix as being the ideal ground for mass scale mobilisation and violence… Further, with the introduction of DPSG (Delhi protests solidarity group) and Pinjra Tod for a wider role, the stigma of being perceived as an overtly communal campaign without a tactical female shield was effectively erased,” the chargesheet states.

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