On Saturday, Delhi Police’s Special Task Force (STF), stated in their Interrogation Report (IR) that the former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) councillor Tahir Hussain has confessed his role in North East Delhi riot, and admitted he incited people to unleash violence, that took place in February this year.
The now-suspended AAP councillor Tahir Hussain confessed that he had wanted to “teach Hindus a lesson” using his political power and money. Further, he said, he met former JNU student Umar Khalid at Popular Front of India (PFI) office, a Kerala-based radical organisation, in Shaheen Bagh on January 8.
According to Delhi Police, Tahir Hussain’s task was to collect as much glass bottle, petrol, acid, stones, as possible on the roof of his house in Chand Bagh locality.
Khalid Saifi, one of Tahir Hussain’s acquaintance, was given the task to gather people on the streets for protest against the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).
According to a news report by NDTV Tahir Hussain told the police during the interrogation: “Khalid Saifi, along with his friend Ishrat Jahan, first started a dharna demonstration in Khureji on the lines of Shaheen Bagh. On February 4, in Abu Fazal Enclave, I met Khalid Saifi for planning the riots.”
During the meeting they decided to provoke people sitting on the anti-CAA strike. Tahir Hussain alleged that Khalif Saifi was the one who suggested that something significant had to be done at the time of Donald Trump’s visit to India to put Central Government under pressure.
He further alleged that another PFI member, Danish, an aquatint of Saifi was also willing to provide financial assistance for the “war against Hindus”.
Meanwhile, police claimed, Saifi and his friend Ishrat Jahan staged a demonstration at Khureji near Shaheen Bagh, which eventually spread to various parts of Delhi.
Further in the interrogation, Tahir Hussain admitted to collect a lot of acid, petrol, empty bottles of liquor and cold drinks from trash, diesel and stones from construction sites on his roof. He had also collected his licensed pistol from the police station to use in the violence.
He also revealed that he refuelled all four cars, which were us, used as petrol bombs during the riots.
Police claimed that Tahir Hussain had ensured that people from his community was not attacked during the violence; hence a day before the incident, he shifted his wife, children and relatives to a safe place.
He also pulled out all CCTV cameras so that the police did not get any evidence. On the day of the riots, he deliberately kept calling the Delhi Police, so he was not suspected.
On August 1, Delhi Police had questioned Umar Khalid about his speeches that he delivered before the North East Delhi riots, and also about his meetings with Tahir and Saifi at Shaheen Bagh ahead of the communal violence.
According to the charge sheet, Tahir Hussain and nine other on June 3, planned the murder of Intelligence Bureau staffer Ankit Sharma, whose body was recovered from a drain in Chand Bagh on February 26, during the violence in North East Delhi.
The interrogation report further claims that Tahir Hussain was aggregated with the scraping of Article 370, which revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir and Supreme Court’s verdict in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid title suit, which gave ownership of the disputed land to trust for construction of Ram Temple.
