All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi said on Saturday that the Congress party is to blame for the implementation of the draconian anti-terror law, UAPA (Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act), under which activists Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam have been refused bail since the past five years.
Speaking at a public meeting in the Chandni Chowk area of Amravati in Maharashtra on Saturday ahead of the January 15 civic elections, the Hyderabad MP said it was then home minister P Chidambaram who introduced the UAPA during the Congress-led regime, with the Congress also supporting the BJP government when UAPA was amended in 2019.
“The people who talk of secularism during elections are in fact enemies of Muslims, Dalits and tribals as they use political secularism to gain votes,” Owaisi said.
Both Khalid and Imam were denied bail by the Supreme Court in the 2020 Delhi riots conspiracy case on the basis of Section 15A of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, he added.
Owaisi also said he was the only one who had objected to the Act in Parliament.
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“I was the only one who had said that this law would be used by police against Muslims, tribals, Dalits and those intellectuals who understand and oppose the government’s policies. You can see what happened today, these two children could not get bail because of the definition of terrorism in that law,” he said.
While Khalid and Imam are languishing in jail for five years, 85-year-old Stan Swamy – an accused in the Elgar Parishad case – also died in jail because of this law, Owaisi added, and said the law is “destroying innocent lives” as expected.
The Supreme Court on January 5 refused bail to activists Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam in the 2020 Delhi riots conspiracy case but granted it to five others, citing “hierarchy of participation”.
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