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A day after Ashoka University Associate Professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad was arrested for his remarks about the press briefings on Operation Sindoor, the Supreme Court agreed to an early hearing of his petition. The matter will be listed on Tuesday or Wednesday.

In a social media post, Mahmudabad, the head of the university’s political science department, had highlighted the apparent irony of Hindutva commentators praising Colonel Sofiya Qureshi, who had represented the Army during the media briefings about the Indian military operation. He suggested that they should also call for justice for victims of mob lynching and “others who are victims of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s hate mongering”.

He has been booked under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to acts prejudicial to maintaining communal harmony, making assertions likely to cause disharmony, acts endangering national sovereignty and making words or gestures intended to insult a woman’s modesty, among others.

Advocate Kapil Sibal, who mentioned the matter before the court, said that cases were filed against the professor for “an entirely patriotic statement” about the operation by the Indian armed forces. Mahmudabad’s students have described his arrest as wrongful and demanded that he be released. Read on.

The Supreme Court has ordered the formation of a Special Investigation Team to look into the remarks made by Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Madhya Pradesh minister Vijay Shah purportedly targeting Colonel Sofiya Qureshi. The bench also rejected the apology issued by Shah.

The court further stayed Shah’s arrest and ordered him to join the investigation.

At an event in Mhow on May 13, Shah had said that those who had widowed the daughters of India had been taught a lesson by Prime Minister Narendra Modi “by sending the sister from their own community”. He repeated the remark immediately after saying it the first time. The Madhya Pradesh High Court took suo motu cognisance of the matter on May 14. Read on

British academic Nitasha Kaul has said that her Overseas Citizen of India status was cancelled due to her scholarly work on the “anti-minority and anti-democratic policies” of the Narendra Modi government. This was a “bad faith, vindictive, cruel example” of transnational repression, she said.

A Kashmiri pandit by birth, Kaul is a professor of politics, international studies and critical interdisciplinary studies at London’s University of Westminster. She has been known for her criticisms of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the ideological parent of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. Read on

The Allahabad High Court has rejected a petition filed by the Shahi Jama Masjid management committee against a trial court order directing the appointment of an advocate commissioner to survey the premises of the mosque in Sambhal.

The structure has been at the centre of a controversy since November 26, when violence broke out in Sambhal after Muslim groups objected to the court-ordered survey of the Shahi Jama Masjid. Five persons were killed in the clashes.

On November 19, the trial court had ordered the survey in response to a suit filed by Hindu activists claiming that the mosque had been built in 1526 by Mughal ruler Babur on the site of a “centuries-old Shri Hari Har Temple dedicated to Lord Kalki”. Read on

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