A professor at a number one personal college in northern India has been arrested over his social media posts associated to the nation’s army operation in Pakistan.
Ali Khan Mahmudabad, the pinnacle of the division of political science at Ashoka College, was arrested by Haryana state police in Delhi on Sunday, following a grievance by the Haryana State Fee for Girls.
The arrest of Mr Mahmudabad has sparked condemnation from throughout the educational group, calling it “harassment” and “tried censorship”.
On the centre of the controversy are Mr Mahmudabad’s, a Cambridge-educated scholar’s, social media posts on 8 and 11 Might, days after India launched “Operation Sindoor”, a army strike concentrating on 9 terror camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir in retaliation for the 22 April Pahalgam assault that killed 26 civilians.
Within the put up, he questioned the “optics” of utilizing feminine Muslim defence officers for briefings on Operation Sindoor, and raised questions over problems with incidents of mob lynching of Muslim males.
Whereas he acknowledged the importance of ladies officers – Colonel Sofia Qureshi and Wing Commander Vyomika Singh – main the army briefing, he mentioned such optics could be “hypocrisy” if not accompanied by real structural reforms to enhance the standing of ladies throughout the Armed Forces and different public establishments.
In one other put up, Mr Mahmudabad praised India’s army technique however criticised warfare rhetoric.
In an announcement earlier than his arrest, the professor mentioned his posts have been “misinterpret” and “misunderstood”, calling motion towards him “a brand new type of censorship and harassment, which invents points the place there are none”.
He mentioned he had “exercised his basic proper to freedom of thought and speech to be able to promote peace and concord and applaud the Indian armed forces for his or her resolute motion”.
“If something, my total feedback have been about safeguarding the lives of each residents and troopers,” learn his assertion, including that “there may be nothing remotely misogynistic about my feedback”.
His assertion was launched after he was issued a summon by the Haryana State Fee for Girls.
The fee interpreted Mr Mahmudabad’s remarks as undermining the dignity of ladies officers and vilifying nationwide army actions. They cited considerations together with disparagement of ladies in uniform, misuse of phrases like “genocide” and “dehumanisation”, and risking communal unrest.
An open letter signed by 1,200 folks, together with teachers, professors, universities and civil servants, expressed help for the professor and demanded an apology from the fee for “intentionally and maliciously slandering him”.
“From a naked studying of his unique posts, it’s clear that Prof Khan praised the strategic restraint of the armed forces, analysed how any distinction between the terrorists or non-state actors and the Pakistani army has now collapsed..,” the letter mentioned.
“He even applauded the Indian proper wing for his or her help for Colonel Sofia Qureshi and invited them to additionally equally loudly oppose mob lynching and the bulldozing that Indian Muslims and others are continuously subjected to,” it added.
In an inside e mail circulated on Sunday afternoon, the Committee for Tutorial Freedom (CAF) at Ashoka College described the arrest as “a disproportionate punishment primarily based on flimsy grounds” and condemned it as “a basic assault on tutorial freedom”, based on an The Indian Specific report.
Mr Mahmudabad, a school member at Ashoka College since 2016, is thought for his work on non secular identification, political tradition, and democracy in South Asia and the Center East. A Cambridge-educated scholar, he holds a PhD on Muslim identification in North India.
The incident marks the most recent incident in ongoing tensions between Ashoka College, a personal liberal arts establishment in Haryana, and the Narendra Modi-led Indian authorities, primarily over points of educational freedom and perceived political dissent.
In 2021, it was rocked by back-to-back resignations of prime school members after outstanding students Pratap Bhanu Mehta and Arvind Subramanian resigned, citing an absence of educational freedom. Mr Mehta’s exit, after being deemed a “political legal responsibility” by the founders, triggered scholar protests and international condemnation.
