On Wednesday, the Supreme Court granted interim bail to Ali Khan Mahmudabad, who teaches political science at Ashoka University. However, the court also made it clear that it considers this teacher’s behaviour and comments to be completely unreasonable and provocative, which is not expected from an educated person.

For this reason, the Supreme Court neither stopped the investigation process nor cancelled the FIR. On the contrary, the court ordered the formation of an SIT, so that this case could be investigated speedily. Haryana police arrested Ali Khan on the complaint of the state women’s commission. The controversy started over a Facebook post by Ali Khan Mahmudabad, who teaches political science at the country’s most upmarket and elite Ashoka University, in connection with which the women’s commission had issued a notice to him, asking for his appearance. But Ali Khan did not agree to come forward and instead issued a public statement questioning the commission’s jurisdiction and motives. Enraged by this, the commission lodged an FIR against him. A political leader too lodged a complaint.

On the basis of these complaints, Haryana police arrested Ali Khan. Later, a local court sent him to judicial custody. After this, a petition for bail was filed in the Supreme Court on behalf of Ali Khan, and the lawyer was Kapil Sibal. The Supreme Court granted interim bail to Ali Khan but expressed deep displeasure over his intentions and actions.

In fact, Ali Khan Mahmudabad had raised the issues of mob lynching, etc, in his social media post while taking a dig at Colonel Sofiya Qureshi, who gave a media briefing during Operation Sindoor, and instead of discussing the Pakistan-sponsored terrorist attack in Pahalgam, he tried to divert the debate to some other direction. It seemed as if India’s strict action against Pakistan was not tolerable to Ali Khan, or he did not like India’s attempt to give a strong symbolic reply through Colonel Qureshi to the fundamentalist rulers and military officers of Pakistan who propound the two-nation theory.

The Supreme Court termed this attitude of Ali Khan as “dog whistling", i.e., an act under which you try to provoke people and communities through gestures and try to polarise them. The Supreme Court clearly said that when the country was trying to teach Pakistan a lesson under Operation Sindoor after the terrorist attack in Pahalgam in which 26 people lost their lives, Ali Khan Mahmudabad tried to take the debate in another direction through his post, which cannot be justified in the name of freedom of speech in such an environment.

The question arises as to why Ali Khan Mahmudabad did this. The answer is that Ali Khan not only teaches political science but also does politics himself, is very active in it, and has been associated with the Samajwadi Party. Most of his social media posts are related to politics, that too focusing on issues related to Muslim interests, attacking the ruling BJP and the Sangh Parivar. Under the guise of being a liberal, Ali Khan Mahmudabad seems to be doing politics of Muslim identity.

In fact, Ali Khan has inherited this kind of politics, particularly from his grandfather. Very few people would be aware that the Pakistan which came into existence as a country for Muslims with the two-nation theory through jihadi, communal thinking, was birthed by Ali Khan’s own grandfather Mohammad Amir Ahmed Khan, who is recorded in the history books as the Raja of Mahmudabad.

This was the same Raja Mahmudabad who nurtured the politics of the Muslim League, opening his treasury to strengthen it. Mahmudabad was a very prosperous talukdari in the then United Provinces, and currently it is a part of Sitapur district of Uttar Pradesh and is also an assembly constituency.

Raja Mahmudabad formally played the role of treasurer of the Muslim League. Raja Mahmudabad was a close associate of Pakistan’s founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, and was deeply involved in the conspiracy to create Pakistan by dividing India. It would also be interesting to note that the founder vice chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University, from which the poisonous tree called Pakistan got the most enrichment, water, and........

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