Sharjeel Imam

Some Lesser Known Facts About Sharjeel Imam

• Sharjeel Imam’s father, Syed Akbar Imam, contested Bihar Assembly Elections in 2005 and lost by a margin of 447 votes to S N Yadav (RJD). He later died due to bone cancer, in 2014.

• Sharjeel’s younger brother, Muzzammil Imam is a social activist and former State President of Rashtriya Yuva Samta Party. He has actively participated in the Anti-CAA protests.

• Sharjeel has always had a keen interest in Islamic theories.

• According to what Sharjeel has articulated in one of his writings for a news portal, being a sole Muslim in the class of 200 students, he had to endure prejudice during his days at the IIT Bombay. ^[2]Firstpost

• In his final year at the IIT Bombay, Sharjeel worked as a teaching assistant at the university.

• After quitting his job as a software developer, Sharjeel Imam entered JNU in 2013, owing to its reputation as the “fort of secularism,” and their struggles against the tyrannical forces.

• Sharjeel Imam was a member of AISA, a student party in the JNU campus, from 2013 to 2015. However, due to a few differences, he left the party shortly after the incident of Najeeb Ahmad’s disappearance, following a spat with some of the members of ABVP (student party).

• Sharjeel’s former teachers recognise him as an intelligent & ingenious student. “I don’t know anyone who has such a stronghold over Indian history. He could talk about Eqbal Ahmad and Allama Iqbal at length,” said Afreen Fatima, one of his JNU friends.

• Sharjeel organised protests against CAA at Shaheen Bagh and other places in Delhi. He resorted to forming a movement under the name of “Chakka Jam,” which involved blocking all the major routes in Delhi, and he even wanted to spread this movement across the country.

• In the charge sheet filed by Delhi Police in the December 15 Jamia Milia violence case, Imam was named as the prime suspect who incited the riots. ^[3]Indiatoday

• Reportedly, Sharjeel delivered inflammatory speeches at different locations in Delhi. He absconded immediately after a video clip from one of his speeches, which he had delivered at Aligarh Muslim University emerged online. The speech included anti-national statements. Subsequently, FIR was lodged against him in Delhi and several other states. Eventually, on 28 January 2020, he was arrested from his hometown Kako, Jehanabad, in a joint operation by Delhi and Bihar police, on charges of sedition, spreading communal hatred, and inciting people for violence.

  

• On 24 January 2022, charges under sedition were framed against Imam by a Delhi court for his alleged inflammatory speeches during the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) in 2019. ^[4]The Hindu While framing the charges against him, Additional Sessions Judge Amitabh Rawat ordered,
  

  Charges are being framed under sections 124 (sedition), 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion), 153B (imputations, assertions prejudicial to national integration), 505 (Statements conducing to public mischief) of Indian Penal Code, and Section 13 (punishment for unlawful activities) of UAPA.”

• On 4 February 2023, a trial court in Delhi discharged 11 accused, including Sharjeel Imam, Safoora Zargar, Asif Iqbal Tanha, and six others in the Jamia violence case of 2019. Later, the Delhi police approached the high court, challenging the trial court’s verdict, and on 28 March 2023, the Delhi High Court set aside the trial court’s discharge of Sharjeel Imam, Safoora Zargar, Asif Iqbal Tanha, and six others in the case. According to Justice Swarna Kanta Sharma, who passed the judgment against the accused, the accused were in the first line of the mob, raising slogans of “Delhi police murdabad,” and consciously joining the unlawful assembly, as seen in videos. The court noticed that in spite of numerous police warnings, the accused marched towards Parliament carrying dandas in their hands. ^[5]Hindustan Times

• On 29 May 2024, the Delhi High Court granted him bail in a 2020 communal riots case involving allegations of sedition and unlawful activities; however, he remained in jail as he was also an accused in the larger conspiracy case in relation to the Delhi riots of 2020.