Six Years Without Trial: The Umar Khalid Case and India's Anti-Terror Law

Umar Khalid, a former research scholar at Jawaharlal Nehru University, has spent six years in custody without trial. He was arrested in September 2020 in connection with the Delhi riots of February 2020 and charged under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, India's primary counter-terrorism statute.

Khalid completed his doctorate on indigenous peoples at JNU and became a vocal critic of the Modi government, emerging as a prominent voice in student-led protests. By January 2020, he described himself publicly as an "unemployed 32-year-old Indian" — a detail that captures how precarious his position had become even before the riots. He was arrested alongside Sharjeel Imam, another activist, as Indian authorities charged a group of academics, organizers, and protest leaders under the UAPA, according to the BBC.

The Charges and How the Law Works

The prosecutors have charged Khalid with a broad range of offenses: riot-related crimes including rioting with a deadly weapon, murder, and attempted murder, plus sedition, promoting enmity between religious communities, and multiple terrorism-related charges under the UAPA. The scope matters because the UAPA has specific rules that make bail structurally difficult to obtain. Unlike standard criminal procedure, the statute puts the burden on the accused to demonstrate they are not guilty at the bail hearing — essentially asking the defendant to prove innocence rather than requiring the state to prove guilt. Indian courts have generally been cautious about granting bail in these cases.

The Delhi riots of February 2020 left at least 53 people dead, predominantly from the Muslim community. They erupted during massive protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act, which critics argued made it easier for non-Muslim refugees to gain citizenship while excluding Muslims — effectively, they said, building religious discrimination into the law. Khalid was active in those demonstrations. The government's theory is that organized protest crossed into conspiracy to incite communal violence; the defense contends that protest leadership itself is being criminalized through terrorism statutes.

Five Years, Two Furloughs

Civil liberties advocates point to the Khalid case as emblematic of a troubling trend: extended pre-trial detention with little movement in the actual trial. In 2024 and 2025, he received two short-term furloughs to attend family weddings — the only periods outside custody in nearly five years at those points, as the BBC reported in January 2026. The trial has not concluded. Bail applications have been contested and denied repeatedly.

For legal analysts, this pattern is noteworthy. The phenomenon predates the current government but has become more common since 2019, when Parliament expanded UAPA to allow designation of individuals — not just organizations — as terrorists. Critics, including international human rights bodies, argue the law has become a tool for indefinite detention without conviction. The government says the charges reflect legitimate counter-terrorism enforcement.

What This Signals

Khalid's case is not an outlier. Since 2019, academics, journalists, and opposition-aligned activists have faced UAPA charges across Indian civil society. The legal framework that emerged from that 2019 amendment is what gives individual cases their broader weight.

The fundamental question that remains unresolved is where India's constitutional protections for free speech and assembly end and where criminal conspiracy under anti-terror law begins. Khalid's defense argues his activity falls on the speech side; prosecutors argue the conspiracy side. Six years on, without a verdict, the judiciary's own pace has become part of the substantive issue.

The Indian Supreme Court has recently issued rulings pushing lower courts to take bail more seriously in UAPA cases and to resist using detention as de facto punishment. Whether those signals will influence the trial court overseeing Khalid's proceedings is an open question worth tracking in the coming months.