A transit bail application has been filed by Nikita Jacob in Bombay High Court after Delhi Police issued a non-bailable warrant against her for alleged involvement in the toolkit case. The matter will be heard on Tuesday. Jacob’s plea seeking urgent hearing was mentioned before the Bombay High Court’s single bench of Justice P.D. Naik on Monday. The High Court said it would hear the plea on Tuesday. Jacob in her plea sought transit anticipatory bail for a period of four weeks so that she can approach the court concerned in Delhi to apply for pre-arrest bail.
The advocate in her plea said she is unaware whether she is named as an accused or witness in the case. “However, the applicant (Jacob) fears that she may be arrested due to political vendetta and media trial,” her application said. It further said the FIR registered in the case was “false and baseless” and Jacob has already cooperated with the cyber cell of the Delhi police and recorded her statement. “Some entity named Legal Rights Observatory appears to have filed a false and baseless complaint with the Delhi Police and seeks to pin the blame for violence on 26 January 2021 upon the applicant as well,” the plea said.
As per the application, on 11 February, a team of Delhi police came to Jacob’s house in Goregaon area of Mumbai with a search warrant and seized documents and electronic gadgets. “The applicant has no religious, political or financial motive or agenda for researching, discussing, editing and circulating communication packs/toolkits for raising awareness, let alone to incite violence, riots and/or cause any other physical harm,” the application said. It said Jacob was a practising advocate in the Bombay High Court who volunteered for environmental causes. “The applicant was deeply concerned about the recent farm laws and villainising of farmers,” the application said. It said Jacob’s personal information and details are being circulated on social media.
The application further said that absolute lies are being spread to incite hate and violence against Jacob by claiming she has ties with political parties like the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). A non-bailable warrant has also been issued against Shantanu. The warrants came earlier today, two days after Delhi police arrested climate activist Disha Ravi from Bengaluru. Nikita Jacob and Shantanu have been suspected to be involved in preparing the documents and were also in direct interaction with pro-Khalistani elements,” a senior police officer said.
Four days ago a special cell team from Delhi went to Nikita Jacob’s house at Goregaon. Her electronic gadgets were examined. Delhi police say that they visited again to question her but she was not available. Greta Thunberg, a teen climate activist, had shared the “toolkit” to lend her support to the farmers’ agitation near Delhi borders against the Centre’s three agri laws. In the document, various urgent actions, including creating a Twitter storm and protesting outside Indian embassies, were listed which were needed to be taken to support the farmers’ protest. The toolkit has been cited by some critics as a “proof” of her conspiracy to fuel protests in India.
Earlier, Delhi Police had asked Google and some social media giants to provide information about e-mail id, URLs and certain social media accounts related to creators of the “toolkit” shared by Thunberg and others on Twitter in connection with the farmers’ protest. According to a Delhi police woman named Puneet who is based in Canada connected these people to the Pro-Khalistani Poetic Justice Foundation. Police said on January 11, Nikita , Disha Ravi and Shantanu attended a Zoom meeting organised by Poetic Justice Foundation in which modalities were chalked out. Meanwhile Delhi police special cell visited Shantanu Muluk house on 11 February but Shantanu was not present there.