Ali Khan Mahmudabad, the Ashoka University associate professor arrested over a social media post about Operation Sindoor, was sent to judicial custody by a Sonipat district court on Tuesday. The next hearing of the case has been fixed for May 27.
Mahmudabad, head of the Sonipat-based university’s Department of Political Science, was arrested on May 18 by the Haryana police in Delhi based on two FIRs lodged on complaints received from Haryana State Commission for Women Chairperson Renu Bhatia and Jatheri village sarpanch Yogesh Jatheri, also the general secretary of the ruling BJP’s youth wing in the state.
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).
This story was originally published in indianexpress.com. Read the full story here.
