Cops raid Sharjeel Imam’s Bihar home

Jehanabad/Itanagar, January 27

The police raided the ancestral home of anti-CAA activist Sharjeel Imam in Bihar, hunting for him in sedition cases lodged across several states for his alleged “inflammatory” speeches, but he eluded the dragnet, officials said on Monday.

The police in two northeastern states — Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh — lodged FIRs against the JNU scholar, over his speech in which he threatened to “cut off” Assam and the northeast from the rest of the country.

Jehanabad SP Manish Kumar said the police swooped on Imam’s ancestral house in the Kako police station area on Sunday night after “help was sought by central agencies”.

Imam was not to be found but two of his relatives and their driver were detained for interrogation and let off thereafter, the SP said.

A graduate in computer science from IIT-Mumbai, Imam had shifted to Delhi for pursuing research at the Centre for Historical Studies at the JNU.

He was slapped with a sedition case after his alleged speeches went viral on social media where he was heard speaking about “cutting off” Assam and the northeast from India.

Earlier, he had been booked on similar charges by the Aligarh police in Uttar Pradesh for a speech he delivered on the AMU campus.

The cases were lodged after Imam’s purported video emerged where he spoke about cutting off the northeast from India if “five lakh people stand organised”.

The Assam police have already lodged a case against him under the anti-terror law — the Unlawful Activities (prevention) Act.

Imam’s father, the late Akbar Imam, was a local JD(U) leader who had unsuccessfully contested an assembly election in his lifetime.

Meanwhile, the police in Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh have registered FIRs against Imam under IPC sections relating to waging war against the nation and sedition. If convicted, he could be imprisoned for life. — PTI