Sharjeel Imam is a JNU student who has been arrested from Bihar’s Jahanabad by the Delhi Police today. Imam has been arrested because he had been booked for sedition by the police of five states in Delhi. These states are Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Delhi and Manipur. He has been booked for sedition for the fiery speech that he delivered at Aligarh Muslim University on January 16,2020. The Delhi Police had deployed at least five police teams across three cities in search of Sharjeel Imam.
On Sunday, the police conducted searches in Imam’s paternal village of Kako in Jahanabad district and detained three of Charnel Imam’s relatives for several hours. Imam’s mother mentioned that her son was just an ordinary student and wasn’t a thief running way from the police. Imam’s mother Afshan Raheem said, “ The statements of my son have been distorted and selectively played by the media. My son is not a ‘chor or uchakka’(thief or ruffian) to run away from the police. He is being vilified and harassed.”
She also underlined that her son was only protesting against the CAA and the NRC and that she or her family wasn’t able to contact him for several days. She also expressed her concerns over the safety of her son and said that he had been falsely framed in the case. She also underlined that she had faith in the system and was sure that law would deliver justice. In a video footage from his January 16 speech, we can hear Sharjeel Imam giving the example of Kanhaiya Kumar’s rally in Bihar where around five lakh people turned up. He said, “If we have five lakh people with us, we can cut off the Northeast from India. If not permanently, for one or two months. Put rubble on tracks and roads… Assam aur India katke alag ho jaaye, tabhi ye humari baat sunenge(Once Assam is cut off, then only will they listen to us)…. We can do that because the Chicken’s Neck corridor(connecting Northeast to rest of India)is dominated by Muslims.”
He also asked people to block more roads in Delhi just like in Shaheen Bagh to put pressure on the government. In his defence Imam said that he was only urging people to bring about a large scale chakka jam and wasn’t inciting divisive politics in any way.
