Delhi Burning: A Timeline Of Anti-CAA Protests And Northeast Delhi Violence

While the national media covered "Namaste Trump" in all its glory in late February 2020 as the then US President Trump visited Ahmedabad, Gujarat, the national capital of India burned. The 2020 Delhi pogrom collided with Trump's inaugural visit to a much politically charged India for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's rally, where the two 'world leaders' complimented each other generously.

Three years later, as students continue languishing in jails while those who incited the violence roam freely, Outlook revisits the timeline of the heart-wrenching Delhi violence.

CAB To CAA

On 11 December 2019, the Parliament passed the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill (CAB) 2019 that facilitated granting of Indian citizenship to persecuted non-Muslim minorities of Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan. Two days later, the then-Indian President, Ram Nath Kovind gave his nod to the Bill, constituting it an Act. 

This was followed by the central government's decision to prepare a National Population Register (NPR) by September 2020 to lay the foundation for rolling out a National Register of Citizens (NRC) across the country.

The Act triggered widespread protests, starting in the northeastern states and soon spreading across the rest of the country. Many in the northeastern states felt that permanent settlement of illegal immigrants will disturb the region's demography and further burden resources and decrease employment opportunities for indigenous people.

15 December 2019: Women of Shaheen Bagh and other nearby localities in north-east Delhi assembled at the intersection of Shaheen Bagh and began an indefinite sit-in protest in contention with the Act. 

Student-Led Protests Versus Police-Charged Batons And Open Firings

At the outset of tensions against the CAA, Mishra carried out a rally in Delhi in support of the Act in December 2019. He shared videos on Twitter that showed him and others chanting the slogans "Goli maaron saalon ko, desh ke gaddaron ko" (shoot them, the traitors to the nation). The slogan was raised across the country by students and politicians during pro-CAA rallies and against the protests.

Universities were turned into battlefields as student-led protests against the Act were met with institutional violence.

December 15, 2019: The day witnessed horrifying attacks on the students by the police of Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, and Jamia Millia Islamia University, Delhi. Rapid Action Force and CRPF attacked the students peacefully protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act with tear gas, and rubber bullets and unleashed lathis on them leaving 60 students injured. In the aftermath, the fingers of two students had been cut off and one was left with an amputated arm. In this chaos, 26 protesting students had been detained.

The same day, hundreds of Delhi police officers forcefully entered Jamia Millia Islamia University and confronted the students with batons and tear gas. There was a brutal lathi charge on the students. Over 200 people, mostly students, were injured. The attacks on students on their university campuses triggered nationwide protests with Human Rights Watch urging India to launch a probe into the attacks.

December 16, 2019: An FIR was registered by the Delhi Police naming seven students as instigators. Later that night, 10 different people including JMI student Asif Iqbal Tanha were arrested from the Jamia Millia Islamia Campus. Later, the total count of the arrests was 22, one of whom was JNU student Sharjeel Imam, arrested concerning the violence.

The following night, resistance spread to other educational centres of the country including the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Mumbai, and Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai among others. 

January 5, 2020: On the first Sunday of the year, over 50 “masked goons”, allegedly from ABVP, the student wing of RSS, armed with sticks and rods, entered the JNU premises and injured over 39 people, including students and faculty, and vandalized the varsity.

27 January 2020: BJP MP Parvesh Verma openly threatened Shaheen Bagh protesters as he addressed a rally in Delhi saying if the BJP is voted to power in the national capital, it will only take an hour to clear off protests in Shaheen Bagh. He later makes provocative comments about the citizens protesting at Shaheen Bagh in a video. 

January 28, 2020: The police arrested JNU student Sharjeel Imam gets with multiple charges under Section 124A (sedition), 153A (promoting enmity), 153B (imputations prejudicial to national integration), 505 (statements conducing to public mischief) of IPC and Section 13 of the stringent UAPA.

More than 20 days later, on January 30, a minor opened fire with a pistol at a group of hundreds of anti-CAA protesters outside Jamia Millia Islamia, injuring a student before walking away while waving the firearm over his head and shouting "Yeh lo Aazadi". The accused was spotted walking with a red bag in several viral videos, that were later found lying on the road. The bag contained a piece of paper with "Mandir wahin Banega" written on it along with two orange flags drawn over the paper.

In August 2021, a Haryana court granted the then 19-year-old Rambhakt Gopal bail after he was booked for hate speeches at several Mahapanchayats. Videos of his speeches showed Gopal crowds, making violent, communally charged comments and asking people to kill Muslims or abduct visibly Muslim women.

Politics Of Hate

Early February 2020: In the run-up to the Delhi elections, BJP political leaders used incendiary slogans and equated the people protesting against CAA - NRC to anti-national elements. Union Minister Anurag Thakur raised the infamous ‘goli maaro..’ slogan calling for shooting the ‘traitors’. 

Another BJP leader Kapil Mishra tweeted - “Pakistan has entered Shaheen Bagh. Mini-Pakistans are being created in the city. The law of the land is not being followed in Shaheen Bagh, Chandra Bagh, and Indralok. Pakistani rioters are occupying Delhi riots.” The communal tweet instigated the North-East Delhi riots.

23 February 2020: While protests were still underway in Shaheen Bagh and Jafrabad, BJP leader Kapil Mishra gave an ‘ultimatum’ to the Delhi police to clear the Jaffrabad and Chand Bagh protestors who were blocking roads. He warned that if the roads weren’t cleared, his supporters shall take the matter into their hands. He also called for a gathering at the Maujpur Chowk in support of the Act.

Within hours of the speech, violence erupted in the area. By evening, eight people had lost their lives including police head constable Ratan Lal. 

The Delhi Pogrom

On 23 February 2020, New Delhi witnessed a communally charged violence in northeast Delhi that lasted up to several days and killed over 53 people, mostly Muslims. Branded as "riots" by the national media and government, the fact-finding committee formed by the Delhi Minorities Commission (DMC) – an independent statutory body tasked with safeguarding the rights of religious minorities termed the events of February 2020 as a "pogrom".

Historically used to refer to anti-Jewish violence in Europe and the Middle East, the term “pogrom” has entered the South Asian context to refer to anti-minority violence, indicating organized and systematic violence, implying that it is purposely devised, designed, triggered, and targeted.

Based on victims' testimonies and the primary legal sources' reviews, the DMC fact-finding team discovered that the victims could recognize some of the perpetrators belonging to their residential areas, while a majority of them were brought from outside. Shreds of evidence that could establish the perpetrators’ identification, such as CCTV cameras, were destroyed. Thus, negating the question of the violence being of a spontaneous nature, as is the case with riots.

Furthermore, multiple instances of targeted attacks on shops, schools, and houses belonging to the Muslim community were found. "They had been identified before the violence, so meticulously that only they were attacked while all others, including those adjacent to them, remained unscathed," Al Jazeera reported. "Visibly Muslim” were, were specifically attacked, their hijabs pulled and some also faced sexual assault. There have also been allegations of women being threatened with rape by police officers.

Multiple videos surfaced on social media platforms showing mobs attacking mosques, Islamic shrines (dargahs) and even burning religious scriptures. Gas cylinders and petrol bombs were used for arson and torching properties. Weaponry including iron rods, lathis, tridents, spears, and live ammunition was used, showing a clear intent to kill, destroy and terrorize the minority community.

Another report from SchoopWhoop showed a victim testifying on camera that the police stood as mute spectators while Delhi was burning. He said that while the Delhi police, which comes directly under the purview of the BJP-ruled Centre refused to help them, it was the armed forces who later safeguarded him and his family from the mob. 

The pogrom successfully managed to displace thousands of Muslim families who rushed to safety at the cost of their settled lives. The government, both newly formed Arvind Kejriwal's AAP and BJP at the Centre were charged with not responding timely to Delhi burning. Authorities registered over 600 complaints and detained around 2000 suspects, with activists, academicians, locals, and human rights watch claiming that most detained by the police themselves were victims.

Covid-19, Protests, And An Emergency

March 22, 2020: Prime Minister Narendra Modi announces a one-day "Janata Curfew" across the country in the wake of the covid breakout. Women protestors in Shaheen Bagh however stated that their sit-in protest would continue despite a visibly thinning crowd. The women had been sitting in the protest since mid-December, braving Delhi winters as well as multiple right-wing sponsored attacks. Shaheen Bagh became a protest model all around the country as a means to dissent.

March 24: The Government of India imposed a nationwide lockdown to prevent the spread of the covid-19 virus. The harsh lockdown prevented social gatherings, public meetings and even being out on the roads, in its initial stage. The first lockdown was implemented for 2 weeks and continued to be extended in multiple parts of the country til the 30th of June 2020.

The CAA-NRC protests diluted and came to a halt as an emergency was imposed across the nation with severe threats of punishment upon its breach, under the garb of a covid-induced lockdown.

February 4, 2023: More than three years after their arrests, the Delhi court discharged Imam and Tanha in the Jamia violence case. However, Imam will continue living in the confines of jail as he still faces a probe under the draconian UAPA, in the conspiracy case related to the February 2022 North East Delhi riots.