Sharjeel Imam sent to police custody for 5 days

JNU student and anti-CAA activist Sharjeel Imam being taken to court in Delhi. (Express)

A day after he was arrested on sedition charge, a Delhi court on Wednesday sent JNU PhD scholar Sharjeel Imam to police custody for five days. Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Purushottam Pathak passed the order inside his residence at Saket district court.

Earlier in the day, Imam was brought from Patna on transit remand after he spent Tuesday night in a police lock-up there. Imam was to be produced at the Patiala House Courts, but when a group of lawyers reached there with posters and started protesting against him, police said he would instead be taken to the magistrate’s residence. Imam was taken to the Crime Branch office in Saket and questioned briefly before being produced before the magistrate.

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The police had initially sought custody for six days. Imam was represented by Advocate Mishika Singh. She told The Indian Express, “The police asked for six days’ remand and were granted five days. We have not moved for bail so far.”

Imam was arrested from his village, Kako in Jehanabad district of Bihar, on Tuesday. It is alleged that he made inflammatory speeches at Jamia Millia Islamia and Aligarh Muslim University.

Besides Delhi, police in Uttar Pradesh, Manipur, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh have booked Imam for sedition.

An IIT-Bombay graduate who is pursuing a PhD in Modern Indian History from JNU, Imam was a volunteer at the Shaheen Bagh protest in Delhi till January 2.