More than 200 national and international scholars, academicians and artists Thursday released a statement in support of former JNU student Umar Khalid, who is under arrest, for his alleged role in the February Delhi riots.
The signatories have called the investigation a “pre-meditated witch-hunt” and said Khalid was falsely implicated by the Delhi Police under the UAPA (Unlawful Activities Prevention Act).
The have demanded that the government “free” Khalid and “all those falsely implicated and unjustly incarcerated for protesting against the CAA-NRC.”
Some prominent people among the 208 signatories include linguist Noam Chomsky, authors Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, Arundhati Roy, Ramachandra Guha and Rajmohan Gandhi, filmmakers Mira Nair and Anand Patwardhan, historians Romila Thapar and Irfan Habib, and activists Medha Patkar and Aruna Roy.