New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru University scholars and activists Sharjeel Imam and Umar Khalid – in jail for over five years over what the Delhi police has claimed is their role in the conspiracy behind the Delhi riots of 2020 – are among nine whose bail appeals were dismissed by the Delhi high court today, September 2.A division bench of Justice Naveen Chawla and Justice Shalinder Kaur dismissed all appeals.Apart from Khalid and Imam, Athar Khan, Khalid Saifi, Mohammad Saleem Khan, Shifa ur Rehman, Meeran Haider, Gulfisha Fatima and Shadab Ahmed were also petitioners. All the accused had been arrested in the first nine months of 2020.The activists had appealed against the rejection of their bail by trial courts.These activists’ time in jail have been marked by multiple appeals and subsequent postponements and rejections by courts, in what rights defenders worldwide have decried as a travesty of justice.On the same day, a separate bench of the Delhi high court, comprising Justice Subramonium Prasad and Justice Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar also denied bail to co-accused Tasleem Ahmed.“The appeal is dismissed,” a division bench said, according to LiveLaw. Ahmed was arrested on June 19, 2020.The highly controversial FIR 59/2020 was registered by Delhi Police’s Special Cell under various offences under the Indian Penal Code and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. Questions continue to hover over the Delhi police’s partisan role in investigating the violence.Much of the Delhi police’s case rests on activists’ presence or participation in WhatsApp groups during the time of the nationwide Citizenship Amendment Act.As cited by LiveLaw, Umar Khalid’s counsel Senior Advocate Trideep Pais had submitted that merely being on WhatsApp groups, without sending any message, is no criminality.Khalid Saifi’s lawyer, Senior Advocate Rebecca John, had asked if bail can be denied on the fact that a law as stringent as UAPA was imposed on the basis of innocuous messages or the prosecution’s attempt to make stories out of such messages.Imam, who was arrested before the riots took place, was even granted statutory bail in the case in which the Delhi police alleged that he made seditious speeches, which was the basis of his arrest.Solicitor General of India, Tushar Mehta, who appeared for the Delhi Police told the high court, “If you are doing something against the nation, then you better be in jail till you are acquitted or convicted.”On the occasion of five years of her incarceration, Gulfisha Fatima had written a piece, which was published on The Wire, in which she said, “Despite all, I firmly believe that the general public of India is neither intolerant nor violent innately.”