The police told the court that they tried reaching out to the student before filing a case
A Mumbai court has turned down the anticipatory bail plea of a second-year student of Tata Institute of Social Sciences after she was charged in a sedition case by the Mumbai Police. Urvashi Chudawala has been untraceable since videos emerged showing her shouting slogans in support of PhD scholar Sharjeel Imam, who has also been arrested in a sedition case for his alleged remarks calling for the whole of the north-east to be severed from the rest of India.
Ms Chudawala approached the court through her lawyer Vijay Hiremath today claiming that the police filed the case based on just one line in the slogan when the entire slogan had several lines.
Her lawyers said that even if she raised the slogan once while protesting, it does not mean that she has any intention of committing the crime of sedition. The defence lawyers said the police were trying to intimidate protesters by filing sedition cases.
They told the court that the student was willing to cooperate with the police in their investigation and since the police have electronic evidence, there is no chance of tampering with evidence by a 22-year-old student. The student's lawyers said she has exams coming up.
The lawyer for the Mumbai Police said the charge against Sharjeel Imam was a serious one, for which he is facing a case. The police lawyer said when the police began investigating her posts on social, she deleted her account.
The police told the court that they tried reaching out to the student before filing a case, but she did not appear before the police and later switched off her phone too. The police said they tried reaching the student through her mother, but even that did not yield any success.
After hearing both sides, the court decided against granting relief to the student, who now faces arrest as four Mumbai Police teams are looking for her.
The student was charged after a video emerged showing Ms Chudawala purportedly leading sloganeering towards the end of the Queer Azadi Mumbai pride march, where slogans like "Sharjeel tere sapno ko hum manzil tak pahuchaenge", or "Sharjeel, we will convert your dreams into reality", were heard.
The organisers of the March have distanced themselves from the slogans, and said the student was in no way connected with them.