After 2 days in police remand, Ashoka University professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad sent to judicial custody

Both the FIRs refer to a May 8 Facebook post by Mahmudabad, a Samajwadi Party member and former spokesperson, in which he said the optics of the media briefing on Operation Sindoor by women officers–Colonel Sofiya Qureshi and Wing Commander Vyomika Singh–were “important” but would be “hypocrisy” if they didn’t “translate to reality on the ground”.

With the remarks, Mahmudabad is alleged to have “disparaged women officers in the Indian armed forces and promoted communal disharmony”.

Both FIRs were registered at the Rai police station in Sonipat district. The FIR based on the complaint of Bhatia has been registered under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita sections 353 (statements conducing to public mischief), 79 (word, gesture or act intended to insult modesty of a woman), and 152 (act endangering sovereignty, unity, and integrity of India).

The FIR on Jatheri’s complaint has been lodged under BNS sections 196(1)B (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion), 197(1)C (assertions prejudicial to national integration), 152 (act endangering sovereignty, unity and integrity of India), and 299 (malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings).

Mahmudabad’s arrest has triggered a wave of outrage from academics and Opposition parties, from the TMC to the RJD to the AIMIM, which described it as “deplorable” and “utterly condemnable”.

The Opposition parties also referred to remarks made on May 12 by Madhya Pradesh Tribal Affairs Minister Vijay Shah that India taught a lesson to those responsible for the Pahalgam terrorist attack using “their own sister (unki samaj ki behen ke zariye)” in an indirect reference to Colonel Qureshi. They pointed out that no action was taken against the BJP leader.

In an internal email circulated on May 18, the Committee for Academic Freedom at Ashoka University called Mahmudabad’s arrest “disproportionate punishment made on flimsy grounds,” and “a fundamental attack on academic freedom”.

Police remand plea dismissed

Mahmudabad was produced before the court of Judicial Magistrate (first class) Azad Singh, where the police sought his remand for seven more days. However, the court dismissed the application and ordered to produce him through videoconferencing on May 27.

“The accused has suffered disclosure statement to the effect that he has visited 14 foreign countries and his record of the visits is to be obtained,” the prosecution said in the court.

The prosecution also said Mahmudabad’s mobile phone and laptop had been sent to the forensic science laboratory in Panchkula and that a report was yet to be received from there.

“Call details of the accused have been obtained. However, record of the communication made through social media is yet to be recovered/retrieved from the mobile phone and laptop,” the prosecution added.

While the police have got Mahmudabad bank account numbers, they are yet to get detailed statements of the accounts, the prosecution submitted, adding that his passport was to be recovered from Lucknow to ascertain his foreign trips.

Mahmudabad’s counsel Kapil Dev Balyan and Mohd Chand Hussain, however, submitted that all the details of the bank accounts had already been provided to the police. His mobile phone and laptop have already been recovered and passport details provided, they said, adding that he had given an undertaking that his passport would be submitted to the investigating officer by 5 pm on Wednesday.

The defence counsel also submitted that Mahmudabad’s call details and the FSL report on data from his mobile phone and laptop would take time to be made available.

They further said Mahmudabad is a Cambridge University scholar, has many friends abroad, and therefore “it cannot be presumed that he has any links with some anti-national elements”.

The court was also informed that the police had obtained his wife’s bank account details as well.

Judge Azad Singh observed that the application for further police remand had been moved “primarily for confrontation with the data, which is yet to be received from Forensic Lab, Panchkula, and for the recovery of passport”.

“It is also for the confrontation with bank details and mobile details pertaining to the communication, which are yet to be received from the concerned bank,” the judge added.

“Since the requisite details are yet to be received by Investigating Agency and police custody now can be sought in the first 60 days of investigation as per Section 187 (2) of BNSS, which is a change in earlier provisions of Section 167 CrPC, which provided for police remand for first 15 days only,” the court observed.

The court thus dismissed the police’s application observing that when all the details are received, “it would be open to the Investigating Officer to move fresh application if so required and advised”.