A Delhi trial court on Wednesday granted seven-day interim bail to rights activist and former JNU student leader Umar Khalid to attend his cousin’s wedding and meet his relatives.

Khalid has been in jail since September 2020 awaiting trial in a UAPA case alleging a “larger conspiracy” in the 2020 Delhi riots.

In his interim bail plea, Khalid had stated that his cousin was getting married on January 1 and mentioned that he would like to meet his relatives, specifically his sister, who is flying down from the US.

Additional sessions judge of the Karkardooma court, Sameer Bajpai, granted interim bail to Khalid from December 28 to January 3.

Khalid has been asked not to meet anyone except his friends, relatives or family members, or visit places except those mentioned inhis plea.

“During the interim bail period, the applicant shall not use social media. The applicant shall only meet his family members, relatives and friends. Applicant shall remain at his home or the places where the ceremonies of the marriage, as mentioned, by him will take place,” Bajpai said in his order.

Khalid has to surrender before the Tihar jail superintendent by the evening of January 3.

He had been granted a similar interim relief for his sister’s wedding in December 2022.

Khalid had moved the trial court seeking interim bail even as his regular bail plea is pending before Delhi High Court. A division bench of the high court had heard Khalid’s bail plea on December 6 where his counsel argued that of the 34 offences against him, he had “completed the sentence or have undergone more than half of it”. Khalid was booked under the UAPA in connection with the 2020 northeast Delhi riots that killed 53.