Sonipat police chief-led SIT to probe social media posts by Ashoka University Professor

The Supreme Court, while granting interim bail to Mahmudabad Wednesday, had directed the Haryana’s director general of police (DGP) to constitute within 24 hours an SIT “comprising three directly recruited IPS officers, who do not belong to the States of Haryana or Delhi”.

“The SIT shall be headed by an officer at least in the rank of Inspector General of Police, the remaining two members will be officers in rank of Superintendent of Police and above. One of the members of the SIT will be a woman IPS officer,” a bench of bench of Justices Surya Kant and N K Singh stated while asking Mahmudabad to “fully cooperate with the investigation”.

Acting on the direction, DGP Shatrujeet Kapur constituted the SIT headed by Additional Director General of Police (Crime) Mamta Singh with IPS officers Ganga Ram Punia and Vikrant Bhushan as its members. While Singh, a 1996-batch IPS officer, is the Commissioner of Police, Sonipat; Punia is Superintendent of Police (SP), Karnal, and Bhushan is SP (Special Task Force, Gurugram). Singh hails from Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh, Punia from Nagaur in Rajasthan, and Bhushan from Jammu and Kashmir.

As per an official order issued by Kapur, the SIT will conduct investigations in connection with the FIRs dated May 17 and May 18 registered against Mahmudabad at Rai police station. “The SIT will expeditiously complete the investigation in the aforementioned cases and submit a report under Section 193 of Bharatiya Nagarik Surksha Sanhita, 2023 at the earliest,” read the order.

Soon after the Supreme Court granted Mahmudabad bail, Ashoka University Vice-Chancellor Somak Raychaudhury, in an internal email addressed to students and faculty, wrote: “We are relieved and heartened by this decision. It has provided great comfort to his family and all of us at Ashoka University.”

Raychaudhury added, “We understand that this is a challenging time, and we are committed to being there for him and his family.” The Vice Chancellor also cautioned the campus community to exercise restraint: “During the hearing, the honourable court expressed its displeasure concerning certain remarks made by some members of the Ashoka community. Given that the matter is sub-judice, I strongly urge all students, faculty, and staff members to practice restraint in everyone’s larger interest.”

The Haryana Police arrested Mahmudabad, who is also head of political science department at Ashoka University, on May 18 after two FIRs were registered against him at Rai police station in Sonipat, alleging that his social media posts on Operation Sindoor endangered the sovereignty and integrity of the country.

One FIR is based on a complaint by Haryana State Commission for Women Chairperson Renu Bhatia and the other on a complaint by Jatheri village sarpanch Yogesh Jatheri who is also the general secretary of BJP Yuva Morcha in the state.

Both FIRs refer to a post by Mahmudabad, a Samajwadi Party member and former spokesperson, on May 8 in which he said the optics of the media briefing on Operation Sindoor by women officers — Colonel Sofiya Qureshi and Wing Commander Vyomika Singh — was “important” but would be “hypocrisy” if it didn’t “translate to reality on the ground”. In a statement later, Mahmudabad had said his remarks were “completely misunderstood”.

While granting him bail, a Supreme Court bench of Justices Surya Kant and N K Singh, however, refused to stay the investigation in the two FIRs against him and termed his post “dog-whistling.”