New Delhi: Expanding on its 'regime change' argument to oppose the bail pleas of several accused including Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam and others, in the 2020 Delhi violence 'wider conspiracy' case, Delhi Police said in Supreme Court on Thursday, November 20, that intellectuals were 'more dangerous' than ground-level 'operatives'.

It was argued on behalf of the police, which is opposing bail that there is a "trend" of doctors and engineers to engage in anti-national activities, The Hindu reported.

Only one of the current accused seeking bail, Imam, is an engineer by education. However, it may have been an oblique reference to recent arrests in the Red Fort area blast case, which allegedly involved medical doctors.

Imam and others were arrested separately and over several months both before and after violence in Delhi's northeast district, in which 53 people had died in early 2020. Imam surrendered to police on January 28, 2020, weeks before the violence broke out on February 23, 2020. Khalid was arrested in September that year, Fatima in April 2020 and Md. Saleem Khan in March 2020.

Additional Solicitor General S.V. Raju appeared on behalf of the police before a bench of Supreme Court Justices Arvind Kumar and N.V. Anjaria in Thursday's hearing. He said intellectuals posed a threat to the country, strongly opposing the bail applications.

The prosecution also played clips of Imam's speeches which he allegedly delivered during the nationwide protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019.

Senior advocate Siddharth Dave, representing the petitioners, said that only a ‘micro’ part of the speeches were being played to cause prejudice against them. J. Kumar observed that whether ‘micro’ or ‘macro’, these were parts of speeches which feature in the chargesheet, The Hindu reported.

In late 2019 and early 2020, protests had materialised in the form of sit-ins at Shaheen Bagh near Okhla in Delhi and other sites in the city and beyond. They had continued during the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, and some even continued, peacefully and unaffected, through the early days of the violence in February 2020.

The prosecution also reiterated its earlier argument that the accused persons sought "regime change", Live Law reported. They timed their protest with visiting U.S. President Donald Trump's arrival to tarnish India's image globally, Raju said. He added to his argument the recent protests in Bangladesh, which took place close to five years after the violence in Delhi, saying that the plan was to launch something similar in India.

The ASG also expressed ire towards international media houses, such as the New York Times, and social media for allegedly being sympathetic towards the accused before bail hearings, The Telegraph reported.

Hearings in the bail plea are likely to continue over the next few weeks.

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