After 2019 Violence Didn't Get Traction, Conspirators Organised Delhi Riots, Paid Women To Be Shields: Delhi Police

A day after ‘Shaheen Bagh dadi’, an 82-year-old protester at Shaheen Bagh, made it to the Times list of the 100 most influential people in the world, the investigation into the Delhi riots shows that the women at the protest sites such as Shaheen Bagh and near Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) were paid “daily wages” by the alleged conspirators to act as a ‘gender shield’.

The Delhi Police chargesheet filed at Karkardooma court states that based on statements of witnesses and WhatsApp chats, it is clear that the women were paid daily wages for being used by the accused for a “secular cover, gender cover and media cover”, reports Indian Express.

“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,” the chargesheet reads.

The police also stated the violence by the protesters near Jamia Millia Islamia in December 2019 was a “precursor riot” to the Northeast Delhi violence, the “February riots” that killed 53.

Since the precursor riots could “not generate nationwide traction”, the conspirators resorted to “masking 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”.

“..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 chargesheet states.

Also read: Bengaluru Riots Are Not Alone To Have Muslim Women Defenders, We Have Seen It From Kashmir To Delhi

The police claimed that 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”.

The “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 police said.

“..while executing the continuing conspiracy in February 2020, [the key conspirators] 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.

Also read: How Mosques In North-East Delhi Acted As Catalysts For Spreading Anti-CAA Propaganda For Weeks Before The Riots