MP high court grants bail to two men arrested with comic Munawar

Faruqui was released from prison late on February 6 after the Supreme Court stayed a Madhya Pradesh high court judgment that declined him bail, and issued notices to the state police as well as the complainant.

The Madhya Pradesh high court on Friday granted interim bail to two people who were arrested along with stand-up comedian Munawar Faruqui earlier this month for allegedly hurting religious sentiments.

Vyas’s counsel Ajay Bagadia said the high court order came on the grounds set by the Supreme Court for granting bail to Faruqui. (HT Photo)

MBA students Prakhar Vyas and Edwin Anthony were the organisers of the January 1 event in Indore from where the two, Faruqui, Nalin Yadav, and a minor, were held on the complaint of Hindu Rakshak Sangathan convener Eklavya Singh Gaud, son of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator Malini Singh Gaud . A day later, Faruqui’s friend Sadaqat Khan, a Mumbai-based engineer, was also arrested for allegedly making abusive remarks about Eklavya. He and Yadav continue to be in jail after their bail pleas were rejected .

Faruqui was released from prison late on February 6 after the Supreme Court stayed a Madhya Pradesh high court judgment that declined him bail, and issued notices to the state police as well as the complainant. The top court also restrained the Uttar Pradesh Police from arresting Faruqui in a separate case registered against him at Prayagraj for allegedly offending religious feelings through his jokes.

“The apex court had found a violation of Section 41 of CrPC (arresting a person without a warrant) as police should arrest a person in a case having a provision of punishment more than 3 years only after a preliminary investigation,” Bagdia said.

Indore, Inspector General (IG) of Police, Harinarayan Chhari Mishra said, “We can’t comment over it as the matter is sub-judice. We will submit the reply to the notice.”

Prakhar Vyas’s uncle, Nitin Vyas, said, “We don’t want to comment anything, but we have full faith in the judiciary. Prakhar and others will be acquitted in the false case.”

Former advocate general Ravi Nandan Singh said, “It’s a check and balance system. The same court, which denied bail to Faruqui and Nalin Yadav, granted bail to two young comedians due to Supreme Court order. Everybody should follow the system and law whether it is a police or judiciary. Our law has no room for injustice. If anybody tries to ignore the law, we have layers of the judiciary system.”

On Friday, at least 100 artistes and writers, including Arundhati Roy, Kunal Kamra, and Kalki Koechlin, issued a joint statement demanding the dismissal of charges against the accused.

The signatories said that every citizen in India has the constitutional right to free speech and expression, albeit with reasonable restrictions “however, through instances like these, it is obvious that most arrests and forms of censorship carried out against artistes are founded on arbitrary grounds and are greatly damaging to artistic and creative freedom in the country”.