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February 17, 2017

India: JNU's progressive student leader Shehla Rashid is accused by Aligarh Univ students union on grounds of 'hurt religious sentiments'

India Today

AMU Students Union invites JNU's Shehla Rashid for leadership talk, then files FIR against her

The FIR filed by AMUSU member Ghazala Ahmad claims Shehla Rashid posted on January 9 "objectionable remarks against Prophet Muhammad and other religions" which has angered the community.

IndiaToday.in  | Posted by Nivedita Dash
New Delhi, February 17, 2017 | UPDATED 14:18 IST
Shehla Rashid
The Aligarh Muslim University Students Union (AMUSU) has filed a First Information Report (FIR) against JNU student leader Shehla Rashid for allegedly disrespecting Prophet Muhammad in a Facebook post.
Addressed to the Civil Lines police station in Aligarh, the FIR filed by AMUSU member Ghazala Ahmad claims the JNU student posted on January 9 "objectionable remarks against Prophet Muhammad and other religions" which has angered the community.
Interestingly, the FIR against Rashid was filed even as the AMUSU had invited her for an all-India student leaders' meet on 'The role of student leaders in building contemporary society', scheduled in Aligarh on Saturday.
Among the others invited for the event are JNUSU ex-president Kanhaiya Kumar, JNUSU president Mohit Pandey, JNUSU ex-president Akbar Chaudhary, Allahabad University student leader Adil Hamza, Delhi University student leader Kawalpreet Kaur, and JNU student Umar Khalid.

The FIR against Rashid was filed even as the AMUSU had invited her for an all-India student leaders' meet on 'The role of student leaders in building contemporary society.'

The AMUSU letter to the cops also says if Rashid comes to Aligarh for the event, there is a possibility of "the situation turning sensitive".
SHEHLA RASHID DENIES INSULTING PROPHET
Rashid, in a Facebook post today, has denied the allegations and cancelled her visit to Aligarh since it "might create an unnecessary media spectacle".
"I gladly accepted the invitation and I communicated to the General Secretary of AMUSU that I would speak on Najeeb Ahmed's issue. However, of late, the conditions that have arisen in AMU seem to point to the fact that my visit might create an unnecessary media spectacle and will divert the issue from Najeeb Ahmed's disappearance. Therefore, I have decided to cancel my visit, in the interest of keeping the movement to Bring Back Najeeb together," she posted.
Rashid also said she is being misunderstood by the AMUSU about her post on Prophet Muhammad. "In the allegedly blasphemous post, I am making a distinction between hate speech and blasphemy. In fact, it is my topic of research to accurately define hate speech in India. However, some people are hell bent upon insisting that I insulted the Prophet (SAW). This is not true," she wrote.
Expressing his solidarity with Shehla Rashid on the controversy, Umar Khalid also posted on Facebook, saying he has been "reading with horror some of the developments and statements coming from some student groups in Aligarh Muslim University regarding a program where some of us have been invited to speak on 18th Feb".

There is no clarity yet on whether the event scheduled on the AMU campus on Saturday will be held.

"Nowhere in the post is she disrespecting the Prophet. She is talking about what trollers write on social media, and how we should react to them. She is writing about what, in her opinion, constitutes hate speech and what does not. You may differ with that opinion. But what you can't do is attribute things to her, that she has not said," Khalid posted.
"Why don't the hurt souls in AMU openly state that the real issue was not Shehla's post, but the left-ideology of the speakers? If they were honest about that, then all the invited speakers would have been in their line of fire," he wrote.
There is no clarity yet on whether the event scheduled on the AMU campus on Saturday will be held.