SAFOORA ZARGAR

Safoora Zargar, a 27 year old M. Phil sociology student at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, joined anti CAA protests. She was born in Kashmir but later shifted to delhi and was raised there. On 6 October 2018, Safoora Zargar married Saboor Ahmed Sirwal in Kishtwar. 

Zafoora is also a member of the media wing of the Jamia Coordination Committee. In 2020, she joined anti CAA-protests in Delhi. She made several speeches and held protests condemning the act . On 10th February 2020 she fainted when she was "caught in a scuffle between the police and students" and was taken to hospital. She was initially arrested at her residence by Delhi Police on 10th April, with police claiming she was among those who organised an anti-CAA protest and road blockade under the Jaffrabad metro station in Delhi on 22–23 February.  On 11 April she was brought before the Metropolitan Magistrate and remanded in police custody for two days. On 13 April she was granted bail, but immediately rearrested by the police on another charge. she was re-arrested on April 13 under the draconian provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967. She was implicated in a conspiracy that allegedly sparked the violence that engulfed Delhi at the end of February and placed in judicial custody.  Additional charges were brought against her on 20 and 21 April. In Zargar’s bail hearing on 4 June, the Public Prosecutor Irfan Ahmed argued the Jamia Coordination Committee had organised most of the anti-CAA protests in Delhi, and then decided to escalate their agitation, resulting in the riots. 

The Delhi Police alleged that Zargar, a member of the JCC, gave a provocative speech at Chand Bagh on 23 February, which led to the violence in the neighbourhood on 24 February — a day later.

Her lawyer Trideep Pais argued that tracking Zargar’s movements on 23 February through her phone signal and WhatsApp message revealed that she had only passed by Chand Bagh and not even spoken at that location.  

Merely protesting the CAA and holding a differing point of view from the Modi government was not illegal, he argued. 

“They are trying to weave a false narrative and making people like Safoora pawns,” he said. 

Additional Sessions Judge Dharmender Rana, while denying her bail, said there was at the very least prima facie evidence of there being a conspiracy to organise a roadblock (chakkajam), and “mere absence” from the scenes of violence did not help Zargar if there is prima facie evidence of the existence of conspiracy. 

“When you choose to play with embers, you cannot blame the wind to have carried the spark a bit too far and spread the fire,” he said in the bail order. 

 Since 15 April 2020, she has been held in Tihar Jail.On 18 April 2020, Zargar's lawyers applied for bail, but this was rejected by the court on 21 April.They made another bail application on 2 May, but withdrew it in court. On 26 May 2020, a Delhi court remanded Zargar in custody until 25 June. On 30 May 2020, Zargar's lawyers again applied for bail, and this was rejected on 4 June by Delhi's Patiala House Court. On 17 June 2020, Zargar applied to the Delhi High Court, challenging the 4 June order and seeking bail.

On 23 June 2020, Delhi High Court granted bail to Safoora Zargar. The court told her not to get involved in any activity which may hamper the investigation, and not to leave Delhi without permission.

We, the undersigned citizens, have been watching – with anger and dismay – the ceaseless harassment, interrogation and, in many instances, torture of protesters who participated in the recent sit-ins and agitations against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), 2019. Gulfisha, Khalid Saifi, Ishrat Jahan (both are Muslim community leaders), Safoora Zargar (member of the Jamia Coordination Committee) and Meeran Haider (president of the Rashtriya Janata Dal youth wing’s Delhi unit) have been arrested in the last few weeks. Safoora Zargar and Meeran Haider, both students of Jamia Milia Islamia, alongside Gulfisha, have been slapped with the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). Umar Khalid, former student activist of Jawaharlal Nehru University, is also understood to have been slapped with the UAPA for his role in the protests, although the latest statement of a senior police officer suggests that he is still under investigation.

The arrests have been justified by the police as a necessary step towards identifying the forces behind the anti-Muslim pogrom that unfolded in North East Delhi in the wake of the peaceful and democratic anti-CAA protests. While police investigation into the violence is welcome, it’s character and direction raises concerns and suspicions. There is ample video evidence in the public domain of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Kapil Mishra threatening to take the law into his own hands a few days prior to the outbreak of violence. Despite that, the police seems intent on investigating the protesters and common Muslim citizens, to the extent of launching a veritable crackdown on them. Muslim activists, their acquaintances and ordinary Muslim citizens of Jamia Nagar, Northeast Delhi and other areas have been particularly targeted, with over 800 Muslims understood to have been picked up by the police. Many of them were victims of the violence and are still reeling under its effects. A range of students’ and women’s groups as well as other democratic organizations that participated in the protests have been harassed and are living in the fear. 

In June 2020, a preliminary report by the American Bar Association said that "International law, including treaties to which India is a state party, only permit pre-trial detention under narrow circumstances, which do not appear to have been met in Zargar's case." The report also said that "In addition to her legal issues, Zargar has also been the victim of a slanderous online campaign, including falsified and explicit images of her being shared online and through WhatsApp messenger".

The move by the state to target her in such a manner as to impose disproportionate punishment that includes imposing the risk of prenatal harms and inflicting injuries that may intergenerationally maim a pregnant resister.

It is far more grave than a violation of Article 21, which protects life and liberty. What does it tell us about the technologies of rule of this state, which presses its armed Hindutva civilian foot-soldiers, its supporters in the media, its armed police, and its collusive criminal justice system into service to hold Zargar in custody in the knowledge that she is pregnant, although the case against her is clearly one that is targeted and a display of executive vindictiveness?The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, under which Zargar has been arrested, like other anti-terror laws in India is built on the presumption of state impunity, and criminalises any opposition to arbitrary actions by the state and barely allows bail. Still Jamia Millia Islamia students Meeran Haider, Shifa-ur-Rehman and Asif Iqbal Tanha, and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student Natasha Narwal and former-JNU-student Umar Khalid have not so far been bailed. This clearly shows the extent of interference of the state in the decision making bodies of india and how it has been targetting the minorities.

And can we forget Mahatma Gandhi’s statement in court in 1922: “Affection cannot be manufactured or regulated by law…I hold it to be a virtue to be disaffected towards a government which in its totality has done more harm to India than any previous system…Holding such a belief, I consider it to be a sin to have affection for the system.”