Sharjeel Imam Sent To Five-Day Custody

New Delhi: Sharjeel Imam, the doctoral student from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), was sent to five-day custody by the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate here. He was arrested in Jehanabad in Bihar after a four-day manhunt on Tuesday. Sharjeel was booked for sedition by the UP police and has similar cases in four other states including Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Delhi.

In a video which has gone viral, Sharjeel is seen telling a crowd that the plan should be to cut off Assam from the rest of India. His remarks along with other such speeches formed the basis on which cases of sedition were booked in these states against him.

The JNU student went underground for four days before he was arrested by a team headed by Delhi police in his village of Jehanabad in Bihar. UP and Bihar police teams also took part in the manhunt.

The Delhi police grilled Sharjeel for four hours on Wednesday and sought his custody for further interrogation. The JNU student has been described as the mastermind behind the Shaheen Bagh protests in the national capital.

However, the Shaheen Bagh protesters distanced themselves from Sharjeel Imam in a statement claiming that their demonstrations were independent of him. Media reports had referred to Sharjeel Imam as a member of the central coordination committee of the Shaheen Bagh protests.

Police are attempting to find out more about the Ph.D student's political associations, as also his connections with any radical networks. Sharjeel Imam also became a debating point in the Delhi election campaign between BJP and AAP.

The BJP had accused AAP of backing Shaheen Bagh protesters and asked its leaders to clarify their viewpoint on the JNU PhD scholar's remarks. In response to the BJP's taunt, the AAP leadership dared the Union Home minister Amit Shah to get Sharjeel Inam arrested since the matter came under his jurisdiction.