Ashoka univ prof sent to 7-day judicial custody, SC to hear his petition on Wednesday

SONIPAT: Ashoka University associate professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad, who was arrested on Sunday for his post on Operation Sindoor, was sent to judicial custody for a week by a local court here on Tuesday as his two-day police remand ended.Judicial magistrate (first class) Azad Singh dismissed the prosecution's plea seeking seven more days of police remand and sent Mahmudabad to Sonipat district jail.On Wednesday, the professor's plea against his arrest will be heard in the Supreme Court by a bench of justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh. Mahmudabad has been slapped with grave charges, including endangering India's sovereignty, for the post to which Haryana State Women's Commission chairperson Renu Bhatia objected, later filing a police complaint.Ashoka's faculty association has condemned the arrest as "calculated harassment" while many others who have read the post have asked what was offensive about it, pointing out that Mahmudabad's post was patriotic, had praised the Indian Army and backed govt's action against Pakistan, while taking a stand against warmongering by a section of society. Mahmudabad's students have also come out in his support. An MPhil and PhD holder from Cambridge, Mahmudabad heads Ashoka's political science department.Before his arrest, he was issued a summons by the women's commission, which alleged his post had maligned the military and disparaged women. The scholar subsequently clarified that his comments had been completely misunderstood by the commission, but Bhatia went ahead and filed a police complaint. Another case was filed against Mahmudabad at the same police station (Rai) based on a complaint by Yogesh Jatheri, sarpanch of Jatheri village and a general secretary of BJP's Yuva Morcha.Jatheri's complaint is not related to the post. Asked what it was about, he had earlier told TOI it was "a serious matter" related to "comments" allegedly made by Mahmudabad against him but refused to elucidate.As the court hearing commenced on Tuesday afternoon, the additional public prosecutor argued police needed Mahmudabad's custody for further investigation. The prosecutor told the court his laptop had been seized and copies of his passbooks and Aadhar card obtained by police, but investigators still needed his details of his foreign travels, to 14 countries."Call details of the accused have been obtained. However, records of the communication made through social media are yet to be recovered from his mobile phone and laptop. Moreover, the record of the bank account numbers has been received, but the statements of those accounts are yet to be received. Other than this, his passport is to be recovered from Lucknow to ascertain the visits made by the accused, and therefore the police remand for seven days is required," the additional public prosecutor Anuj Malik submitted.Defence counsels Kapil Dev Balyan and Mohammad Chand Hussain contended that all details pertaining to bank accounts and his passport had already been provided to police. They said Mahmudabad's passport would also be submitted to the investigating officer. "The accused is a scholar of Cambridge University and has many friends in foreign countries. Therefore, it cannot be presumed that he has any links with anti-national elements. Bank account details of the wife of the accused have also been obtained. Therefore, the application seeking further police remand is not maintainable," the defence argued.Dismissing the prosecution argument for further police remand, the court directed the defence counsel to submit Mahmudabad's passport with the investigating officer by 5pm on Wednesday. "In view of the facts and circumstances, the application for police remand stands dismissed at this stage, observing that when all the details are received, it would be open to the Investigating officer to move a fresh application if so required and advised. The accused is remanded to judicial custody and be again produced before court on May 27, 2025, through VC," the court said in its order.The court also directed the jail superintendent to provide necessary medicines, according to rules, to Mahmudabad, who is diabetic. Bhatia had objected to, among other things, the scholar's reference to briefings by Col Sofiya Qureshi and Wing Commander Vyomika Singh in his May 9 post. Mahmudabad had written that he was "very happy to see so many right-wing commentators applauding" the Indian Army officer, but "perhaps they can equally loudly demand that victims of mob lynchings, arbitrary bulldozing… are protected as Indian citizens." "The optics of two women soldiers presenting their findings is important, but optics must translate to reality on the ground, otherwise it's just hypocrisy," he wrote.In the long post, Mahmudabad also made the point that it's the poor who suffer from war while "politicians and defence companies" benefit from it. "There are those who are mindlessly advocating for a war, but they have never seen one, let alone lived in or visited a conflict zone," he wrote.