India\u2019s top court granted bail on Wednesday to a professor arrested for commentating online about the military conflict with Pakistan but did not stop the investigation against him.<\/p>\n
Ali Khan Mahmudabad, a political science professor at the private, liberal-arts Ashoka University, was arrested on Sunday over a Facebook post criticising those \u201cmindlessly advocating\u201d for war.<\/p>\n
He also wrote that the \u201coptics\u201d of two women army officers who had held press briefings \u201cmust translate to reality on the ground otherwise it\u2019s just hypocrisy\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mahmudabad since said his comments had been \u201cmisunderstood\u201d and that he had exercised his \u201cfundamental right to freedom of thought and speech\u201d.<\/p>\n
He is charged under multiple sections of India\u2019s criminal code, including endangering the country\u2019s sovereignty and using words or gestures with the intention of insulting the modesty of a woman.<\/p>\n
While granting Mahmudabad bail, India\u2019s Supreme Court said he should have avoided the \u201cuse of complicated words\u201d which could \u201churt individuals\u201d and instead used \u201csimpler words to convey his sentiments\u201d.<\/p>\n
The court also directed the formation of a special police team to probe his comments.<\/p>\n
Mahmudabad was restricted from commenting on the India-Pakistan conflict or on the social media post that led to his arrest.<\/p>\n
India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire last week after four days of intense exchanges of artillery, drones, and missiles.<\/p>\n
The latest escalation between the nuclear-armed rivals came after 26 people were killed on April 22 in Indian-Occupied Kashmir. India, without investigation, blamed Pakistan for \u201cbacking the terrorists\u201d, an allegation that Islamabad vehemently denied.<\/p>\n
Amnesty International called his arrest \u201cshameful\u201d and accused authorities of \u201cconsistently misusing the law to target anyone who has a critical view\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mahmudabad\u2019s post on May 8 referred to two women soldiers \u2014 including Muslim officer Sofiya Qureshi \u2014 who conducted army press briefings before the ceasefire and were praised for presenting the image of a united and progressive India.<\/p>\n
He said he was \u201chappy\u201d that Hindu nationalist commentators were supporting the women, but that they could \u201cequally loudly demand\u201d the protection of \u201cvictims of the BJP\u2019s hate-mongering\u201d \u2014 referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).<\/p>\n
Soon after, the government women\u2019s rights commission in Haryana state summoned Mahmudabad over his comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
India\u2019s top court granted bail on Wednesday to a professor arrested for commentating online about the military conflict with Pakistan but did not stop the investigation against him. Ali Khan Mahmudabad, a political science professor at the private, liberal-arts Ashoka University, was arrested on Sunday over a Facebook post criticising those \u201cmindlessly advocating\u201d for war. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9347,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9346"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9348,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9346\/revisions\/9348"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}