After a clash between hundreds of anti-farm laws protesters and security officials on the Republic Day of 2021 at the Red Fort, and the hoisting of the Nishan Sahib from its rampart, several allegations were levelled against the farmers’ agitation. A union minister said that a “criminal conspiracy” had “hijacked” the protests. The Delhi Police reportedly registered a case of sedition, and also called the violence the “most deplorable, anti-national act” in a notice to a farmers’ leader. The media furthered this narrative. Times Now reported that sources in the Delhi Police termed the violence “pre-planned” and flashed headlines that a “foreign hand” was being probed. The news agency ANI went a step further: it published a piece titled, “Pakistan-sponsored elements and Khalistan sympathisers actively involved in farmers’ protest.”
Two years on, none of these allegations have been proven, while the farm laws have long been repealed. In fact, as the investigation into one of the most sensational cases filed regarding the violence shows, the Delhi Police has still not answered pertinent questions about what unfolded that day, including those about multiple individuals sustaining gunshot injuries.
To rewind to the Republic Day of 2021, it had been two months since tens of thousands of the farmers began massive sit-ins on the Delhi border against the 2020 farm laws. Support for the protests swelled up in this time, as did the government and the mainstream media’s efforts to demonise the agitation. Amid this, the farmers announced a tractor rally through Delhi on 26 January 2021.
That there would be chaos on the day was hardly unpredictable. A faction of the protesters had already announced that it will not follow the route that the farmers’ leaders had decided in agreement with the Delhi Police. “Sources” in the Delhi Police had told the media a day earlier that a “huge conspiracy” by “rouge elements linked to Khalistani outfits” and others was likely to come alive during the rally. In fact, a media report later claimed that 20 days before Republic Day, top officials from the Delhi Police and intelligence agencies discussed a plan by the banned organisation Sikhs For Justice to hoist a “Khalistani flag” at the Red Fort. SFJ is United States-based Khalistani group which has demonstrably little currency in India. Despite these indications before the rally, how were security agencies unable to stop the violence?
Protesters stormed the Red Fort—without permission from the administration—and clashed with security officials, leaving over a hundred and forty injured. Jugraj Singh, a protester, climbed a flag pole and hoisted the Nishan Sahib—the Sikh flag—just underneath the national flag. Visuals of violent protesters at the Red Fort dominated the news cycle, dwarfing scenes of the peaceful anti-farm law tractor rallies that took place across the country that day.
Around one hundred and sixty people were arrested in connection to the violence and 54 cases were registered. One of these cases, the first-information report 96 of 2021, led to a charge sheet, filed in May 2021, that ran over three thousand pages. In a section of the charge sheet titled, “Conspiracy,” the investigating officer, Pankaj Arora, wrote that the protesters wanted to “conquer / get hold of” the Red Fort and make it a protest site for the farmers. Arora cited the rise in sale of tractors in Punjab and Haryana ahead of the rally as one indicator of this conspiracy.
While listing brief facts of the case, Arora wrote about how the protesters “indulged in rioters’ activities.” He stated that the protesters assaulted the policemen guarding the site, robbed them of articles including anti-riot gear and ransacked government property. The FIR that led to the charge sheet was based on a complaint by a police inspector. In it, the inspector described the protesters attacking policemen with weapons, including pistols and swords. In retaliation, the complaint stated, the police used “appropriate force.” The charge sheet did not elaborate on what this appropriate force was.
The charge sheet states that multiple individuals at the Red Fort also sustained gunshot wounds. One of them was a certain Jaspreet, who was untraceable. In the section mentioning Jaspreet, Arora added that a supplementary chargesheet would be filed once the investigation of his case was complete. However, since then, only one more charge sheet has been filed, in June 2021. This emphasised that the protesters broke rules that had been set to control the COVID-19 pandemic, without a mention of Jaspreet or his gunshot wound.
The medico-legal certificate of 19-year-old Himmat Singh stated he had an “Entry wound seen on Right of Middle of Back,” among other injuries, but classified the injuries to him as “simple” instead of grave. After seeing the MLC, Pyara Lal Garg, a retired professor of surgery who was the dean at the faculty of medical sciences in Chandigarh’s Panjab University, said that it was clear that this was a gunshot wound as the medical officer “has accepted the history of the patient and has recorded the complaint of gun shot on the back.”
Akashpreet Singh, one of the accused in the case, also sustained a gunshot injury. Tejpartap Singh, Akashpreet’s lawyer, told me that the chargesheet is silent on the aspect of “whose bullets those were.”
The police charged the 16 men who were accused in the case with a slew of grave offences under the Indian Penal Code—including sections pertaining to attempt to murder and rioting, armed with deadly weapons—as well as sections under the Arms Act, the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, the Epidemic Diseases Act and others. All 16 had been arrested over February and March, but 13 of them were out on bail by the time the charge sheet was filed.
Apart from the accused, the charge sheet listed seven people against whom non-bailable warrants had been issued. Among them was Jugraj Singh, the man who hoisted the Nishan Sahib for whose arrest the Delhi Police had even announced a cash reward of one lakh rupees.
In an order granting him anticipatory bail on 20 July, the judge Kamini Lau stated that while Jugraj was the one who hoisted the Nishab Sahib, the investigating officer had submitted that there is “no material on record to show that the applicant/ accused was involved in any kind of violence or attacking the police officials.” Lau also wrote in the order that she had asked the investigating officer “if the presence of the accused at the Red Fort was a very grave offence and non bailable. The Investigating Agency is also not sure of the same.” She repeated these statements in her July bail orders for three others against whom non-bailable warrants had been issued—Jajbir, Gurjant and Boota Singh.
That month, Lau granted anticipatory bail to two more individuals in FIR 96 of 2021, Surjit Singh and Major Singh. In both these orders, she stated that she had asked the investigating officer if “carrying a lathi by Sikhs and Nihangs is prohibited upon which he is not very sure.”
Moreover, the investigating officer, Arora, listed evidence against each of the accused in a section of the charge sheet. For five of the 16 accused, he did not mention any evidence that showed that they had themselves indulged in violence that day. These five accused were Akashpreet, Dharminder Singh Harman, Dharminder Singh, Harpreet Singh and Harjeet Singh.
Under each of their sub-headings, Arora wrote that the accused was interrogated and “accepted his guilt” that he had joined a “riotous mob.” A disclosure statement is not admissible as evidence in court. Arora wrote about photos, videos or call records that proved their presence at the Red Fort that day. Arora added that by continuing to be members of the unlawful assembly despite knowing the assembly has turned violence, “the present accused made himself liable for the unlawful for the offences committed by any other member of the unlawful assembly.”
Harman denied indulging in violence. “I was carrying our national flag and even posed for a selfie there,” he told me. This selfie, which he uploaded on Facebook, has been cited as evidence in the charge sheet. Harman said that about twenty policemen came to his house in Delhi in plain clothes on the night of 2 February to arrest him. “They asked me to follow them and when I asked for a reason, they began abusing me and snatched my phone,” he said. Harman was then arrested and received bail only fifty days later, on 22 March.
The evidence against each of the accused appears to be different. For some of them, the police listed videos that showed them attacking officials. The actor Deep Sidhu, who is now deceased, was among the accused for instigating people to deviate from the official route and reach the Red Fort. Sidhu became a controversial figure in the farmers’ protests after he refused to call the Sikh militant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale a terrorist in an interview. Following this, photos that showed he was associated with the BJP parliamentarian Sunny Deol during the lead up the 2019 Lok Sabha elections went viral.
Arora wrote that Iqbal Singh, another main accused, was a “die-hard” supporter of Khalistan. Iqbal had given a provocative speech and, while he was in custody, spoke of getting a cash reward from SFJ for hoisting the Nishan Sahib. The charge sheet mentioned a recording of his daughter conversing with a relative about receiving Rs 50 lakh. It further stated that Jabrang Singh, another accused, was receiving “foreign funding.”
The strands Arora mentioned in the charge sheet were to be investigated further. But the status of the probe remains unknown. Emailed questions to the Delhi Police’s commissioner and crime branch about the violence went unanswered.
Tejpratap, Akashpreet’s lawyer, told me that the police had still not provided him with the CCTV footage they had cited in the charge sheet. On 1 August 2022, Arora told the chief metropolitan magistrate hearing the case that the new investigating officer of the case is Satish Rana. On 7 November, the CMM asked the police to submit a status report on the probe on 18 January 2023. But the investigating officer was absent from the hearing that day. The court then issued a notice to him to file the status report on 4 March 2023 instead.