The Delhi High Court on Tuesday granted interim protection from arrest to human rights activist Nadeem Khan, Live Law reported.

The Delhi Police has charged Khan, the national secretary of the Association for Protection of Civil Rights, with promoting enmity between groups and criminal conspiracy based on a widely shared video.

Khan’s organisation describes itself as working to uphold civil liberties.

Justice Jasmeet Singh ordered that Khan not be arrested until Friday. The court also directed Khan to join the police investigation on Wednesday and not to leave Delhi without the investigating officer’s permission, reported LiveLaw.

The Delhi Police on Saturday tried to detain Khan in Bengaluru without an arrest warrant, according to the Association for Protection of Civil Rights. Khan subsequently moved the High Court seeking to quash the first information report against him, which was registered at Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh Police Station.

The Association for Protection of Civil Rights said that around 5 pm on Saturday, the station house officer of Shaheen Bagh Police Station, with four other officials, arrived at the home of Khan’s brother in Bengaluru.

The officials asked Khan to “voluntarily” accompany them to Delhi for questioning, without producing a warrant or notice and by merely showing him a copy of the FIR, the organisation alleged.

The FIR, seen by Scroll, pertains to an event in Hyderabad from November 14 to November 16, in which the Association for Protection of Civil Rights had participated.

The police has invoked against Khan sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to promoting enmity between groups, criminal conspiracy and public mischief.

The case was filed on November 30 based on a complaint by a police official identified as Sub-Inspector Akshay. While the FIR was filed two weeks after the event, the document said there was no delay in lodging a report based on Akhshay’s complaint.

The event in Hyderabad had featured discussions on the Supreme Court’s guidelines on mob lynching, bulldozer demolitions and hate speech, a member of Khan’s organisation told Scroll, adding that the group was just one of the participants there.

The civil rights group said that the police on Saturday badgered Khan and his family for over six hours and tried to coerce him into accompanying them to Delhi, after which they issued him a notice under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita directing him to appear before the police.

The FIR is said to be based on a social media post featuring a video of Khan speaking at the Hyderabad exhibition. The video did not show Khan uttering unlawful speech, the Association for Protection of Civil Rights maintained.

At the hearing on Tuesday, Advocate Kapil Sibal, representing Khan, argued that the FIR did not mention cognisable offences. He said that the FIR and the allegations were simply conjecture by the complainant, Live Law reported.

The police said it had gathered sufficient evidence to prove the commission of a cognisable offence, which it would place on record at the next hearing.

The court granted interim protection to Khan noting that the material on which the complainant’s allegations were based had not been placed before it for examination.