The Supreme Court will on Tuesday hear Ashoka University associate professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad’s challenge of his arrest by Haryana police for his social media post on Operation Sindoor.
Mahmudabad was arrested on Sunday for a Facebook post that contrasted the “optics” of having Colonel Sofiya Qureshi as an Operation Sindoor spokesperson with the “hypocrisy” of the BJP’s “hate-mongering” against Muslims.
A bench of Chief Justice B.R. Gavai and Justice Augustine George Masih listed the matter for Tuesday after taking note of the submissions of senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Mahmudabad.
“He has been arrested on false charges for a patriotic statement. Please list it for hearing either tomorrow or the day after,” Sibal told the bench.
Mahmudabad has sought the quashing of the FIR registered against him and his immediate release.
The professor was arrested on a complaint lodged by a Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha leader who alleged that his social media post had endangered national security.
Mahmudabad was booked under BNS Sections 152 (acts endangering sovereignty or unity and integrity of India) and 196 (1) (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion). He was remanded in police custody for two days till May 20.
Calling for Mahmudabad’s release and termination of the probe against him, Aakar Patel — chair of the board at Amnesty International India — also pushed for the repeal of Section 152 of the BNS.
“Accusing Professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad of sedition and other charges is not only absurd and completely unwarranted but also shows how authorities have been consistently misusing the law to target anyone who has a critical view in the country. Section 152 of the Indian criminal code, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), which the professor has been accused of, is nothing but a new version of the old sedition law which the Supreme Court had stayed in 2022,” Patel said in a statement.