He always cooperated with the police whenever they called him in for questioning and returned to Delhi on short notice before his arrest on Sunday, Umar Khalid’s friend Banojyotsana Lahiri told The Hindu .
Ms. Lahiri, a former Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student who now works as a researcher, said Mr. Khalid was in Rajasthan on September 11 when he received separate summons from Delhi Police’s Crime Branch and Special Cell.
“Crime Branch wanted him to come that day itself but he told them that he was in Rajasthan and needs a day or two to return. They then asked him to contact them when he returns. Special Cell on the other hand continued to send summons and did not respond to his request to allow him to join two days later,” she recalled.
Ms. Lahiri said that Mr. Khalid received two summons from Special Cell and one from Crime Branch on Friday and Saturday. “On Saturday, he finally decided to return and appear for questioning,” she said.
Around noon on Sunday, Mr. Khalid went in for questioning at the Special Cell office. “Around 11 p.m., his family was informed that he has been formally arrested,” she added.
Speaking about the last few months, Ms. Lahiri said that Umar learned that he had been booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act through media reports in March. “For the next four months till July, he did not get any calls. In August, he got the first call saying that they [the police] wanted to question him. He was in Kolkata at the time and he got stuck there because of the lockdown,” she said, adding that despite travel restrictions, he returned to Delhi on a single-day notice and cooperated in the first round of enquiry.
Next, he was called in by Crime Branch and again by Special Cell on August 31. “The larger point here is that the police did not call him at all for four months and whenever they did, he cooperated with the enquiry,” she said.
Reacting to the arrest, Ms. Lahiri said that the way the investigation is being conducted is “bizarre”. “No one can anticipate anything. One can only speculate,” she said.
When asked how Mr. Khalid’s parents reacted to the arrest, Ms. Lahiri said that “they are now getting used to this”.
In June, after his name appeared in a chargesheet as being part of a larger conspiracy in riots, Mr. Khalid had said there was not an iota of truth in the police’s claim. On September 1, he had written to Delhi Commissioner of Police S.N. Shrivastava stating he was being falsely implicated.
