Sharjeel Imam has been arrested from Jehanabad in Bihar on sedition charges for saying Assam should be separated from India. The police had raided Imam’s ancestral home on Sunday night after “help was sought by central agencies”.
Said to be in his early 30s, Sharjeel Imam has a degree from IIT Mumbai and later moved to Delhi for pursuing research at JNUs Centre for Historical Studies. He had been involved in organizing the protests at Shaheen Bagh but came into limelight after a video clip went viral wherein he could be heard making comments while addressing a gathering at Aligarh Muslim University, following which he was booked under sedition charge in the UP town.
The Delhi police claimed he had given an “inflammatory” speech earlier on the Jamia Milia Islamia campus and lodged an FIR against him in the national capital. Besides, another case was lodged under the stringent anti-terror law against him in Assam, taking cognisance of Imams remark that Assam could be “severed from India, even if for a few months” as a result of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA).
