Inside the maximum security prison at New Delhi’s Tihar, Umar Khalid --- who on Saturday completed 1,400 days behind bars without a trial--- has been reading Fyodor Dostoevsky’s ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ and Manoj Mitta’s ‘Caste Pride: Battles of Equality in Hindu India’.

Khalid did his PhD from JNU on ‘Contesting claims and contingencies of the rule on Adivasis af Jharkhand’. The university had initially refused to accept the thesis and did so only after repeated snubbing by the court in 2018.

He was rusticated by a panel formed by the JNU authorities to probe the events of February 9, 2016 which had brought him into limelight along with other student leaders from JNU, Kanhaiya Kumar and Shehla Rashid, all of whom have gone in separate political directions in these eight years.

Khalid later alleged that despite the court directing JNU authorities not to take “coercive action” against him, the varsity authorities had refused to accept it. On August 2, 2018 JNU accepted his PhD thesis submission.

“His spirits are still high, though the delays dampen them once in a while. The inordinate delays have made the situation extremely frustrating,” Banojyotsna Lahiri, Umar’s partner, told The Telegraph Online on Monday.

“We don’t see justice in sight. It is a difficult situation to be in.”

Lahiri had met Umar last week at Tihar. He is allowed visitors once a week.

“He is reading Dostoevsky and Manoj Mitta. His reading habits are such. He mixes fiction with non-fiction,” Lahiri said.

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Delhi police arrested Khalid in September 2020. He was accused of being a “key conspirator” in the Delhi riots of 2020 that left 53 people dead following months of massive protests against the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of Citizens.

Khalid was the last among the 20 people arrested by the Delhi police, including Sharjeel Imam, one of the spearheads of the Shaheen Bagh protests against the citizenship law, the rules of which were framed ahead of the Lok Sabha polls by the Narendra Modi government.

The Delhi police had lodged two cases against Umar, one of which was dropped and in the other he is yet to be charge-sheeted. The courts – from the lower to the highest – have continued to deny him bail.

Khalid has been booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act – aka UAPA, a law that makes bail exceptionally difficult to get – apart from sedition and 18 other sections of the Indian Penal Code.

In the 1,402 days that Umar has been incarcerated, the trial is yet to start.

“The jail is not a nice place. Nobody should be there. Though Tihar is somewhat better managed than other prisons. The guards are not that hostile,” Lahiri said.

Umar Khalid had first filed for bail before the sessions court in July 2021. The application was heard the following month. After eight months of hearing, on March 24, 2022 the sessions court denied him bail.

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Khalid’s bail application has been rescheduled 14 times in the apex court in the days that he has spent behind bars. A sessions court has rejected his bail twice, and the Delhi high court once.

“Right now there is some confusion. We are planning to move the high court soon. Before that we need to know the bench. The judges hearing the cases earlier have been transferred,” Lahiri said.

Of the 20 people who were charged in the case, six have been granted bail while 14 others are still languishing behind bars.

“Some of them have already argued their cases twice before different benches. Now their cases will have to be heard afresh. We are not sure where we stand in the queue,” said Lahiri. “Once things become clearer we will take the next step.”

According to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, Khalid’s reason for persecution is “Protesting Religious Freedom Conditions Religious Identity.”

The Indian government rejects the US report.

The nature of charges, according to the USCIRF, include, criminal premeditation and conspiracy, hate speech, illicit financing, murder and attempted murder, public disorder, terrorism, treason and sedition.

In October 2022, a former Supreme Court judge, three retired high court judges and a former Union home secretary examined the UAPA case against Umar Khalid and observed that they could not find any substantiating evidence to warrant the imposition of terrorism charges.

Exactly two months before Umar completed 1,400 days in jail without bail, a Bangalore court had granted bail to JDS MLA HD Revanna, accused in the Karnataka serial sexual assault case, on a bond of Rs 5 lakh.