NEW DELHI: The arrest of Professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad on Sunday under charges that point to sedition and for hurting religious sentiments for his comments on operation Sindoor has been criticised by opposition parties who said the move shows how “fearful” the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is of critique, The Wire said on Monday.

Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Mahua Moitra said that if an eminent scholar like Mahmudabad can be arrested “on Mickey Mouse charges & jailed then it is only because of his name.”

Ms Moitra also re-shared Mahuma­dabad’s post and said that nothing in it “is remotely offensive, let alone seditious”.

Prof Ali Khan Mahmudabad has noted in his social media post that while rightwing Indians rejoiced at Col Sofiya Qureshi’s briefings about operation Sindoor, they were insensitive to the lynchings and bulldosing of homes of Muslims in India.

Says move shows how ‘fearful’ BJP is of criticism

The opposition also said that in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s India, “hate mongers” like Madhya Pradesh minister Vijay Shah can roam free while those calling for peace are arrested.

“The arrest of Ashoka University professor, Ali Khan Mahmudabad, shows how fearful the BJP is of any opinion, disliked by them,” said Congress president Malliakrjun Kharge in a statement on Monday.

Mr Kharge pointed to the vicious trolling of Pahalgam terror attack victim Lieutenant Vinay Narwal’s wife Himanshi, who had called for peace and condemned the hate campaign against Muslims and Kashmiris.

In Madhya Pradesh, BJP leader and cabinet minister Kunwar Vijay Shah called Colonel Sofiya Qureshi (who had conducted press briefings during Operation Sindoor) “sister of terrorists”, Mr Kharge recalled, and said that Mahmudabad’s arrest “follows a chain reaction”.

“Instead of sacking their own Madhya Pradesh’s Deputy CM & Minister, who made disgusting statements against our valiant armed forces, BJP-RSS is hell-bent on casting a narrative that anybody who represents pluralism, questions the government or simply performs his professional duty in the service of the nation, is a threat to its existence,” said Mr Kharge.

On Sunday, two FIRs were lodged against Mr Mahmudabad, one on the complaint of a BJP office-bearer and the other on the complaint of the Haryana State Commission for Women, days after its chairperson had summoned the professor over his social media posts against warmongering following the operation Sindoor against Pakistan.

The police confirmed his arrest in a statement posted on X. Rashtriya Janata Dal MP Manoj Kumar Jha said on Sunday that “critiquing the government does not amount to critiquing the nation”. “Let us repeat a hundred times and if required keep doing it continuously that critiquing the government does not amount to critiquing the nation — and this is a crucial distinction in any healthy democracy or society. A government (however powerful it might appear!) is temporary and made up of elected or appointed officials whose duty is to serve the people,” he said.

“Critiquing government policies, decisions, or leaders is often an act of patriotism, motivated by the desire to improve the nation and uphold its values. Loving your country sometimes means holding its leaders to a higher standard — because the nation deserves better. Therefore, to ask questions to those in power is not to abandon the land we love, but to guard it more fiercely — for a nation’s soul lives not in silence, but in the courage to speak.”

Mahmudabad scion’s arrest comes as multi-party delegations will be sent by the union government to different countries to “project India’s national consensus and resolute appro­ach to combating terrorism in all forms and manifestations”.

All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen MP Asaduddin Owaisi, who will be a part of these delegations, called Mahmudabad’s arrest “utterly condemnable” and said that it “violates legal process”.

“It targets an individual for his opinions; his post wasn’t anti-national or misogynistic. A mere complaint by a BJP worker made Haryana police take action,” he said.

In a statement, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Sunday also condemned Mr Mahmudabad’s arrest and pointed to Shah roaming free even as the Ashoka University professor was arrested.

Published in Dawn, May 20th, 2025