A Delhi court acquitted the former chief of the Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), Shahid Badar Falahi, on Thursday of charges of promoting enmity between different groups and indulging in assertions prejudicial to national integration. The Delhi Police filed the case in 2001, months before the outfit was first banned by the Union government.
Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sanjay Khanagwal held that the prosecution had failed to connect the accused to the charges.
The case was initially registered at the New Friends Colony police station against unknown persons in May 2001 for fixing a loudspeaker carrying photographs of three controversial religious sites on the wall of a Jamia Millia Islamia hostel building. It was transferred to the Special Cell after SIMI was banned on September 27 that year for alleged anti-national and subversive activities.
At the time of framing of the charges in the case in 2002, the sessions court cleared Dr. Falahi of the sedition charge. The case was then put on trial in a magisterial court; Dr. Falahi was granted bail.
Immediately after the ban on the SIMI in 2001, the police raided its Zakir Nagar headquarters in South Delhi and arrested several of its top leaders, including Dr. Falahi.
His lawyer H.A. Siddiqui said three other cases were pending against him: one registered in Delhi and one each at Azamgarh and Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh.
