Suspended AAP leader Tahir Hussain's bail plea rejected in Delhi riot case

District and Sessions Judge Tyagita Singh dismissed his bail application on the ground that police investigation in the case was still at an initial stage.

During the hearing, Tahir's counsel Javed Ali pleaded before the court that his client was innocent but had been falsely implicated in the case.

Communal clashes broke out in northeast Delhi in February after violence between groups supporting the changed citizenship law and those opposed it had spiraled out of control, leaving 53 people dead.

Hussain and two others, Gulfam and Tanvir, were arrested for attempt to murder and criminal conspiracy. The councillor has six other FIRs registered against him and is currently in judicial custody.

Hussain had said in his bail plea: "The applicant is neither directly nor indirectly involved in the case. The FIR merely mentions that certain acts of violence were taking place from the house of the applicant at the time when the complainant got injured, rather than the applicant himself firing the shots."

He pleaded for bail on the grounds that no seizure of any firearm, bullets, or even empty cartridges were made from him by the police.

The bail plea asserted that police 'did not have a single piece of evidence" to prove Hussain's role in the crime. "The applicant is an innocent person who has been falsely implicated in the case."

Hussain said he was willing to "cooperate with the police to unearth the conspiracy and bring to book the real preparators of the crime", not tamper with evidence, or interfere with investigation, or abscond.

"The accused has never been implicated in any other case as he does not have any criminal antecedents, except this one," Hussain submitted in the bail application.

Delhi Police had recently booked him under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in a case related to communal violence in the area. Two Jamia Millia Islamia students and former JNU student Umar Khalid have also been named in the same FIR.