Names of senior Congressman and former External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid, Senior Left politicians Brinda Karat, Annie Raja and Kavita Krishnan figured in a supplementary chargesheet filed by the Delhi Police in connection with the Delhi riots. Both the Congress and the Left slammed the Delhi Police and said the Union Home Ministry is targeting political opponents rather than arresting real culprits involved in the riots. Earlier, CPI (M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury was named by the Delhi Police. Congress leader and party chief whip in Rajya Sabha, Jairam Ramesh, said the move is a shame on the Delhi Police.

The CPI national secretariat said in a statement that the manner in which Delhi Police is investigating the incidents of communal violence is deplorable. “The peaceful and democratic protests against the CAA were a legitimate, constitutional expression of people’s dissent against the law and it was the effectiveness of the protests that shook the BJP which is now attempting to portray the protests as a conspiracy to cause riots in North-East Delhi. It is indeed shocking that the Delhi Police is trying to frame political leaders and activists who are critics of the anti-people policies and programmes of the current regime,” the party said.

It said, CPI national executive member Annie Raja, Khurshid, Brinda Karat, Kavita Krishnan and other activists extended solidarity with the peaceful protests led by Muslim women and now this is being twisted into a grand conspiracy. In contrast, the glaring absence in the chargesheets on the role of leaders associated with the BJP, who gave inflammatory speeches, is unmissable. There are serious concerns about the impartiality of the probe. The CPI along with other opposition parties had even given a memorandum to the President of India highlighting these concerns and had asked for the institution of an enquiry into this investigation under the Commission of Inquiry Act, 1952, headed by sitting/retired judge(s),” the statement added.

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