Charged With Sedition, Pro-Sharjeel Sloganeer at Mumbai LGBTQ March Files Anticipatory Bail plea

Urvashi Chudawala and 50 others were caught on camera allegedly raising slogans in favour of arrested JNU student Sharjeel Imam at the Mumbai Pride Solidarity Gathering 2020, which was organised at Azad Maidan.

New Delhi: Urvashi Chudawala, a TISS Mumbai student, who has been identified as the leader of the group which allegedly raised slogans in favour of arrested JNU student Sharjeel Imam at an LGBTQ parade in Mumbai last week, on Wednesday filed an anticipatory bail plea after being charged with sedition by the Mumbai Police.

Maharashtra: Urvashi Chudawala, who has been booked for sedition for allegedly raising slogans in support of Sharjeel Imam, outside Azad Maidan Police Station in Mumbai, files anticipatory bail application in Mumbai Sessions Court.

— ANI (@ANI) February 5, 2020

Urvashi, who reportedly went underground since a sedition case was registered against her, filed her plea in the Mumbai Sessions court. The development comes a day after her mother registered her statement before the police. Remarking what she did was ‘wrong,’ her mother though alleged that she was ‘instigated’ into raising pro-Sharjeel slogans.

The police action came after a video of the group raising pro-Sharjeel slogans at the Mumbai Pride Solidarity Gathering 2020, which was organised at Azad Maidan, went viral on social media. Besides Urvashi, 50 others who were in the group that raised the slogan, too, were booked by the police.

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The 50, however, are yet to be identified.

The Queer Azadi Mumbai, which organised the march, has already distanced itself from the sloganeering. Calling the slogan ‘irresponsible and potentially detrimental,’ it said that it would cooperate with the police in its investigation.

Sharjeel Imam, who is also an ITT-Bombay alumnus, was last month arrested and charged for sedition after a video went viral of him asking for the northeast to be cut off from mainland India. A Delhi court on Tuesday increased his police remand by three days after his earlier five-day police remand period ended on Tuesday itself.