New Delhi: Kasim Usmani, Chandan Kumar, Asif Tanha, Asif Khan, Ashu Khan, Mustafa and Haider are some of the names that have been listed in the FIR registered by the Delhi Police in connection with the violence that broke out at the Jamia Millia University on Sunday.

What is interesting about these names is that all are associates of political parties such as the Congress, Aam Aadmi Party and the Left. The BJP has been stating repeatedly that the protests relating to the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill have been engineered by political parties and that a deliberate attempt has been made to put out a false narrative.

The usual suspects:

Kasim Usmani is a member of the CYSS, which is the student’s wing of the Aam Aadmi Party. Chandan Kumar is a member of the All India Students Association, part of the Left Wing. Asif Tanha on the other hand is a member of the Students Islamic Organisation. 

The FIR also names Asif Khan, a former Congress legislator. Ashu Khan, Mustafa and Haider have been named as local politicians by the police in the FIR.

Delhi police officials say that the violence was pre-planned and there was a sustained effort on the part of all these persons to trigger a chain of events. An officer part of the investigating team told MyNation that it was clear that there were many who had come prepared to incite violence. “While inspecting the areas where the violence took place, we found bags of stones. This is a clear indication that they came well prepared to incite violence,” the police said.

Another case of inciting:

On Tuesday, there was violence once again, this time at Seelampur. The mob strength was 4,000 police estimates say. There were clashes between the police and the mob, but the situation was brought under control soon.

In this incident too, the police have found that there was a hidden mob. which triggered the protests. The original plan was to stage a peaceful protest. As per the plan, the protest march was to begin at 2 pm at Jaffrabad. However there was a mob that began assembling at Seelampur at 1.15 pm itself. 

Police officials say that this was pre-planned and the initial intimation was only about the protest march at Jaffrabad. However the hidden mob came out at the Seelampur point and after that the crowd swelled to 4,000 people, the police said.

At first the march was a peaceful one, but then the hidden mob indulged in violence. While the situation was brought under control, there were violent incidents at the North Delhi area, where stones were pelted, bikes were torched and police personnel were attacked. It took a great amount of fire-fighting before the situation was brought under control.

Police say that they find a pattern in this incident. The original plan was to take out a peaceful march, but it was this hidden mob that worsened the situation.

A deep-rooted conspiracy:

The Intelligence Bureau, which had first flagged concerns about a deep-rooted conspiracy behind these protests, says that the conspirators were aware that there would be a chain reaction. It has always been the idea of the Left and the Congress to target educational institutions as protests that turn violent in these places tend to spread like wildfire.

An IB official said that this time the conspiracy was a deep-rooted one. Political parties were questioning the logic behind leaving out Muslims from the legislation. The Opposition knew this issue had the potential to spread like wildfire and hence the Muslim-dominated areas as well as the minority institutions such as the Jamia Millia and Aligarh Muslim University became the trigger points.

Going by the pattern, it becomes clear that the Opposition parties along with naxal sympathetic outfits wanted this issue to turn into a communal clash. The idea was to spread a false narrative that the Indian Muslims would become a target of this legislation, which in reality is not correct.

The Government has had to issue several clarifications to counter the fake narrative by the Left and others. The legislation is applicable only to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. It does not in any way affect the Indian Muslim. Further, there is nothing in the Citizenship Act that says Muslims cannot apply for citizenship in India.

The dots will be joined and truth will prevail:

The seeds were sown in Assam and the violence spread to various parts of the country. The National Investigation Agency and a Special Investigating Team would be probing the violence in Assam.

The naxal link to the Assam violence has already come out following the arrest of Akhil Gogoi, a known naxal sympathiser. Based on the assessments and reports provided by various agencies, it was also learnt that in Assam there was a deep-rooted conspiracy hatched by anti-national elements to burn down the Secretariat.
Assam minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that Congress members were urging large crowds to gather in front of the Secretariat with an intention of burning it down. The entire incident was being coordinated by a leading academician, he said without naming him. 

Citing electronic evidence, Sarma further said that some sections of the Congress party had specifically called their cadres to assemble in front of the Secretariat and burn it down. The attack here was a deadly combination of the so-called urban naxals, anti nationals and a section of the Congress, he also said.

Going by preliminary reports filed by the police in Assam, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, it makes it clear that there was a nexus between Students Unions and the Opposition to deliberately spread a false narrative on the legislation and then trigger nationwide protests.

Once the job in Assam was done, they moved to Delhi, where officials say that the plan to turn the agitation violent was on from last Wednesday itself. The kind of materials recovered from the site of protests clearly indicate that it was a pre-planned event. In fact after the Seelampur incident, the police found at least 10 bags with stones strewn all over the place. Clearly, no peaceful protestor comes with a bag of stones, the police say, while adding that this incident too was pre-planned.

The police while joining the dots behind all these incidents say that the students are first told to come out in large numbers and take out a peaceful march. As this begins, hidden mobs would come out and pelt stones at the police and ensure that the agitation turns violent.