The Maharashtra Police has filed a case against Ex Aligarh Muslim University student Sharjeel Usmani (24) in Pune on Tuesday for his speech at the recent Elgar Parishad conclave held on January 30th. A case under section 153 (A) of the IPC (promoting enmity between different groups on the ground religion, etc) was registered against him by the Pune as per police commissioner Amitabh Gupta. Anil Deshmukh, Home Minister of Maharashtra and the Member of Legislative Assembly from Katol in Nagpur has said that Sharjeel Usmani will be arrested.
“The Maharashtra Police have investigated the video clippings of the Elgaar event held on 30th in Pune and a case has been registered against Sharjeel Usmani for his offensive remarks. He is not currently in MH but we will arrest him from whichever state he is in, be it Bihar, UP, Gujarat or elsewhere,” said Anil Deshmukh in his remarks to the press.
The Elgaar Parishad meet was attended by writer Arundhati Roy, Justice (retd) B G Kolse Patil, journalist Prashant Kanojia, Dalit activist Satyabhama Suryawanshi and former IPS official S M Mushrif. The Elgaar Parishad was organised in Pune by the Bhima Koregaon Shaurya Din Prerna Abhiyaan, which is the birth anniversary of Rohith Vemula, a Dalit research scholar of the University of Hyderabad whose suicide had created an uproar in 2016.