Meeran Haider, the PhD student from Jamia Millia Islamia University who was arrested in April in connection with rioting and criminal conspiracy pertaining to anti-Hindu riots in north-east Delhi, has made some shocking revelations regarding the anti-Hindu riots that Islamists carried out in the month of February.
According to a report by Zee News, Haider who is also the president of the Rashtriya Janata Dal youth wing’s Delhi unit and a member of Jamia Coordination Committee (JCC) revealed that the anti-Hindu riots were planned after the Jamia violence and that he was tasked to gather a crowd for the protests and demonstrations in Delhi and oversee other arrangements.
Popular Front of India funded the Delhi anti-Hindu riots
He disclosed that the riot was sponsored by Popular Front of India (PFI). Meeran told the police officer that he himself had received Rs 5 lakhs to engineer the riots. The Muslim dominated areas of Delhi, Zafarabad and Seelampur were chosen and Meeran and others were given the task to collect knives, petrol and stones etc.
Meeran Haider said he had prepared a register before the riots to maintain the record of all fund being collected for the purpose. He said that the money received as ‘Zakat’ was used by them to purchase gadgets, weapons and other things which they required to carry out the task.
Speaking on the sequence of events that inspired him to carry out the riots, Haider told the police that Centre’s scrapping of the Article 370, Babri Masjid verdict by SC followed by the implementation of CAA by the government had filled his mind with anger and hatred which pushed him to unite the Muslims against the government.
Meeran Haider confesses that he was in Aam Aadmi Party before joining RJD
The accused told the police that he himself went to all the states to mobilise support and incite people against CAA-NRC and mentally prepare them for the riots. He, in fact, personally supervised the anti-government demonstrations on at least 20 sites in Delhi, revealed Haider, who claimed that he already knew Umar Khalid and Khalid Saifi, the two main facilitators of the Delhi anti-Hindu riots.
Khalid had met Saifi during the 2016 Aam Aadmi Party election campaign in Punjab. Meeran Haider told the police that he too was in the Aam Aadmi Party from 2014 to 2017 but after failing to get the ticket for contesting municipal elections, he quit the party in 2017 and joined the RJD.
Speaking on how the horrific attack on Hindus in Delhi was a pre-planned one, Meeran said that after the Jamia violence and the ‘success’ of Shaheen Bagh protest, they thought that the protests should be held in more Muslim areas of Delhi, where there was resentment against the Centre about CAA-NRC.
Meeran Haider reveals the strategy devised to conduct the Delhi anti-Hindu riots
Speaking on the strategy devised to conduct one of the worst communal riots in decades, Meeran said that it was divided into 3 phases – protests, roadblocks and riots.
He divulged that while the members of DU’s Pinjatod group like one Natasha and Devangana were secretly associated with this movement, given the task to give inflammatory speeches, he was given the responsibility to mobilize the crowd at the protest sites at Shaheen Bagh, Khureji, Seelampur, Jaffarabad, Turkman Gate, Kardampuri, Mustafabad, Indralok. Meeran reportedly also ran Whatsapp groups to incite riots in Delhi.
He revealed how he roamed around all these places and collected information, which he, in turn, passed on to the Jamia Coordination Committee (JCC) so that further strategy could be devised.
Meeran confessed of knowing many members of the PFI (Popular Front of India), who gave money to incite the communal riots in Delhi, like PFI activists Sajid Mujid and Mohammad Sihad of Kerala who sent Rs 20 thousand to him for the riots.
