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Delhi High Court Grants Kanhaiya Kumar Six Months Interim Bail

JNU Row: Delhi High Court Grants Kanhaiya Kumar Six Months Interim Bail
Indian student union leader Kanhaiya Kumar (C) is escorted by police into Patiala Court for a hearing in New Delhi on February 17, 2016. Student union leader Kanhaiya Kumar had been arrested for allegedly shouting anti-India slogans at a rally called to protest against a Kashmiri separatist's execution three years ago -- a charge he denies. His arrest has reignited a row over freedom of expression in India, where some rights campaigners say the Hindu nationalist government is using the British-era sedition law to clamp down on dissent. AFP PHOTO / CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP / Chandan Khanna (Photo credit should read CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP/Getty Images)
CHANDAN KHANNA via Getty Images
Indian student union leader Kanhaiya Kumar (C) is escorted by police into Patiala Court for a hearing in New Delhi on February 17, 2016. Student union leader Kanhaiya Kumar had been arrested for allegedly shouting anti-India slogans at a rally called to protest against a Kashmiri separatist's execution three years ago -- a charge he denies. His arrest has reignited a row over freedom of expression in India, where some rights campaigners say the Hindu nationalist government is using the British-era sedition law to clamp down on dissent. AFP PHOTO / CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP / Chandan Khanna (Photo credit should read CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP/Getty Images)

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday granted an interim bail for six months to Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) Students’ Union president Kanhaiya Kumar who was arrested on February 12 on charges of sedition.

Kumar, accused of raising anti-national slogans on the JNU campus during an event organised on February 9 to protest the 2013 hanging of parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, was granted bail on a surety of Rs 10,000.

Kumar’s lawyer had argued that the students’ union leader never raised any anti-India slogans while the Delhi Police held that it had enough evidence to prove that Kumar and other students shouted anti-national slogans holding Afzal Guru’s posters.

The police had also claimed that Kumar was "not cooperating" in the probe and said that he even gave "contradictory" statements.

Kumar had also distanced himself from Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, the two other accused arrested in the case.

Countering the allegations, defence lawyers had stated that there were “some outsiders with covered faces who raised anti-India slogans and Kumar was seen in a CCTV footage asking them for their identity cards.”

Earlier in the week, the Delhi Police had found itself in an embarrassing situation when the court asked if they knew the meaning of sedition. Further, the court had also asked the police if they had any tangible evidence against Kumar other than the video footage sourced from television channels.

A day ago, forensic analysis conducted by a private lab had revealed that the two videos in which Kumar was heard shouting anti-national slogans were doctored.

In its report submitted to the Delhi government, Hyderabad-based Truth Labs stated that two out of the seven videos of Kumar that were submitted for examination were tampered.

“Discrepancies in the lip-syncing were found and the audio and video streams are from different streams, merged from different sources with an intention to make these recordings appear as true events,” the report had said.

Meanwhile, the CPI (M) has demanded a high-level probe into the doctored videos.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.