New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani has sent a handwritten note to jailed activist Umar Khalid, the activist’s partner Banojyotsna Lahiri said on Thursday.

The letter was handed to Khalid’s parents during their visit to the United States in December.

Mamdani wrote that he often thought about Khalid’s words on bitterness and the “importance of not letting it consume one’s self”.

In the note shared on social media by Lahiri, Mamdani said that it was a pleasure to meet Khalid’s parents. “We are all thinking of you,” it added.

In 2023, Mamdani had read out portions of a letter written by Khalid at an event in New York, in which the activist reflected on not becoming bitter about his circumstances, The Indian Express reported.

Lahiri shared Mamdani’s note on social media the day he was sworn in as the mayor of New York.

Lahiri said Khalid’s parents, Sahiba Khanam and Syed Qasim Rasool Ilyas, were in the US to visit one of their daughters ahead of a family wedding, The Indian Express reported.

“They met Mamdani and a few others in the US and spent quite some time with him,” she said. “That’s when he wrote this note.”

Khalid was arrested by the Delhi Police in September 2020.

The activist has been booked in an Unlawful Activities Prevention Act case pertaining to clashes that had broken out in February 2020 among supporters of the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act and those opposing it in North East Delhi. The violence had left 53 dead and hundreds injured. Most of those killed were Muslims.

The police have claimed that the violence was part of a larger conspiracy to defame the Narendra Modi government and was planned by those who organised the protests against the amended Citizenship Act.

Khalid had been granted an interim bail from December 16 to December 29 to attend his sister’s wedding.

US lawmakers’ concerns about detention of Khalid, others

On Tuesday, US Congressman James P McGovern and seven other lawmakers wrote to Indian Ambassador Vinay Mohan Kwatra on Tuesday raising concerns about the “prolonged” pre-trial detention of persons charged in cases related to the 2020 Delhi riots, including Khalid.

Referring to the case, they said that human rights groups, legal experts and the global media had questioned the fairness of the investigation and legal process. They noted that independent inquiries by rights organisations “did not find evidence” linking Khalid to terrorist activity.

“As a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, India must uphold the rights of individuals to receive a ‘trial within a reasonable time or to [be released] and ‘to be presumed innocent until proved guilty’,” the letter added.

The letter highlighted that Khalid had not been found guilty of a crime and “yet the pre-trial treatment to which he has been subjected is punitive in and of itself”.

Besides McGovern, the letter was signed by Jamie Raskin, Chris Van Hollen, Peter Welch, Pramila Jayapal, Jan Schakowsky, Rashida Tlaib and Lloyd Doggett.

Watch: ‘Detention without trial violation of rights’: Banojyotsna Lahiri on CAA, godi media and Umar Khalid