A Delhi Court on September 30, 2022, granted bail to Sharjeel Imam in a sedition case for making an inflammatory speech at Jamia Milia Islamia during the anti-CAA violent protests. The bail has been granted on the condition that Imam pays a personal bond of rupees 30,000. However, Imam has not been released from jail yet as he is still one of the prime accused in the February 2020 anti-Hindu Delhi riots, which killed 53 people and left over 700 injured.
Imam who was part of the “Shaheen Bagh Organising Committee”, played a major role in mobilizing the Muslim protest in the national capital against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in 2020. In January 2020, a video of Imam went viral in which he was heard asking the Muslims to cut off Assam and Northeast from the rest of India. He said:
The time has come when should tell non-Muslims that if they sympathize with us, then they must stand with us on our terms. If they can’t agree to our terms, they can’t sympathize with us.
I have said in the past that if we can organize five lakh people, we will be able to permanently cut off Assam from India. If not permanently, then at least for a month or two.
Create ruckus on railway tracks and roads so that it takes them (the government) at least a month to clear things on the ground. It is our responsibility to isolate Assam. They (the government) will hear us only if we cut off Assam and India.
Imam was arrested in January 2020 from Bihar’s Jehanabad. The Delhi Police filed a charge sheet against Imam in July 2020 under the sedition under the Sections 124A, 153A, 153B, 505 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), and Section 13 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). In one of the pamphlets recovered from Imam’s laptop, the police found material that was used to provoke Muslims by spreading fake information regarding the CAA. In January 2022, a Delhi Court observed that Imam “lambasted the Constitution of India, and the ideas of democracy and secularism”, while framing charges of sedition under the UAPA. The court said:
The accused by referring to the blockage/cutoff of ‘chicken neck’ which joins mainland India to the NorthEast by seems to remind everyone that the said land belongs to Muslims and the call to do it, by certain means, is indicative of his intention.
“The speech also appears to challenge the territorial integrity and sovereignty of India. It also appears to create hatred/contempt for the lawful institutions of the state and to challenge them by unlawful means”, the court observed.
In December 2021, Imam was granted bail in the December 2019 Jamia Millia Islamia violence case during the anti-CAA protests. The FIR filed against Imam in the case booked him for rioting, conspiracy, attempt to commit culpable homicide, voluntarily obstructing public servant in discharge of public functions, and assault.
