About two months after the Assam Police arrested a 19-year-old college student for allegedly writing an “anti-national poem”, her family on Wednesday appealed that she be released immediately on bail, reported NKTV, a local news channel.

Barshashree Buragohain, was arrested on May 18 and has been booked under provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. Buragohain is a second-year Bachelor of Science student at the DCB Girls College in Jorhat. She was arrested for an Facebook post made on May 17, reported The Indian Express.

The first information report said that Buragohain had written in Assamese “Swadhin xurujor dixe akou ekhuj, Akou korim rashta druh” (One more step toward the sun of freedom, once again, I will commit treason), according to The Indian Express.

This was implicit endorsement of the United Liberation Front of Asom (Independent), a banned military organisation, and pointed towards a larger “criminal conspiracy” and “intent to wage war against the Indian government”, the FIR said.

The Gauhati High Court is hearing the case. The next hearing is scheduled on July 21.

Several social media users and political leaders appealed for her release. Buragohain’s parents also sought her immediate release citing her examinations.

“Her final exam is from July 16,” said Usha Buragohain, the student’s mother. “You have kept her in the jail because of writing a poem. This is totally injustice. Her study life has been finished and as the exam is from July 16, we demand immediate bail for my daughter. I know my daughter and she doesn’t have that kind of mindset.”

Barshashree Buragohain’s brother Arindam Buragohain told Scroll.in that the poem was not provocative at all.

The police, however, denied that the student had been arrested for writing an anti-national poem.

Assam Special Director General of Police (law and order) GP Singh tweeted that Barshashree Buragohain was arrested as there was a “specific call to indulge in waging war against the state” in her Facebook post.

“When someone publicly professes support for a banned organisation and declares intent of waging war against the Indian state, we are legally bound to prosecute that person,” Singh tweeted. “Following due process, chargesheet shall be filed in competent court of law. Let the law take its own [course].”

Assam Director General of Police Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta told reporters that Buragohain had written she was going to join the United Liberation Front of Asom (Independent) and was also luring others to join the banned outfit.

While Buragohain had not mentioned United Liberation Front of Asom (Independent) directly in her poem, her counsel, A Dihingia, told The Indian Express: “The post has been linked to the outfit because it mentioned ‘sun’ – which is the symbol of the ULFA-I.”

Arindam Buragohain told the newspaper that her sister was arrested when she was visiting a friend in a neighbouring town.

“I do not know what she wrote exactly but she keeps writing on Facebook,” he said. “But we know that she is not connected to any anti-national group or the ULFA. My father is a daily wager, we are going through a very hard time.”

Meanwhile, Congress MPs Abdul Khaleque and Pradyut Bordoloi demanded that Barshashree Buragohain be released from jail.

“Barkhashree is a budding poetess who has been expressing her indomitable free-flowing spirits through letters but has never said or done anything that falls into the realm of terrorism or can be described as anti-Indian,” Bordoloi tweeted.

Novelist Arupa Patangia Kalita said that she was upset” that Buragohain has been jailed “for an ordinary revolutionary poem”.

“All citizens should stand up in support of free speech,” she added.