Mumbai Police Launch Hunt After Group Raises Pro-Sharjeel Slogans at LGBTQ March

A group of participants, whom the organisers said were not known to them, were caught on camera raising slogan of 'Sharjeel tere sapno ko manzil tak pahunchayenge' (We will make your dreams come true, Sharjeel). The Mumbai Pride Solidarity Gathering 2020 was held at Azad Maidan.

New Delhi: The Mumbai Police has launched a hunt for a group of people who were caught on camera raising slogans in favour of arrested Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student Sharjeel Imam at an LGBTQ parade in the city on Saturday.

In a video which went viral on social media, a group of participants was seen raising the slogan of ‘Sharjeel tere sapno ko manzil tak pahunchayenge‘ (We will make your dreams come true, Sharjeel) at the march-called the Mumbai Pride Solidarity Gathering 2020-which was organised at the Azad Maidan.

Reacting to the controversy on Sunday, the Queer Azadi Mumbai (QAM), the organisers of the march, distanced themselves from the slogan, saying that these were raised by people not known to them. “We completely dissociate ourselves from and strongly condemn the abrupt radical slogans in support of Sharjeel and/or any other slogans against the integrity of India at the gathering,” the organisation said in a statement, adding that the sloganeering was stopped as soon as it was brought to its notice.

Calling the slogan ‘irresponsible and potentially detrimental,’ the QAM added that it will cooperate with the legal processes that may be required by law enforcement systems in this regard.

Sharjeel, also a former IIT-Bombay alumnus, was booked for a provocative speech he gave at the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) on January 16, in which he spoke about ‘cutting-off’ the northeast from the rest of India.

He was arrested last week from his native Bihar and was later sent to five-day custody by a Delhi court.