Delhi riots 'planned scheme' to divide India: Cops tell HC

The 2020 riots in northeast Delhi were not “spontaneous” but a “well planned”, “well orchestrated”, “well thought of conspiracy”, carried out on a particular date, time and place to achieve the sinister goal of dividing the country on religious lines and embarrassing India globally, the Delhi Police told the Delhi high court on Wednesday.

- Shruti Kakkar

Even as the court reserved verdicts in bail pleas of student activists Gulfisha Fatima, Sharjeel Imam, Umar Khalid, and United Against Hate (UAH) founder Khalid Saifi, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the police, urged a bench of justices Navin Chawla and Shailender Kaur to not treat the case as a case of “mere riots” but as one where the accused had conspired with an intention to cause communal divide, destabilise India's unity, and law and order.