LU asst prof gets anticipatory bail on Pahalgam attack post
Lucknow: The Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad high court has granted interim anticipatory bail to Madri Kakoti, an assistant professor of linguistics at
Lucknow University
, for her controversial posts on social media after the Pahalgam terror attack.
The order was passed by the vacation single bench of Justice Rajiv Singh on Monday.
Kakoti's advocate SMH Rizvi said the main argument put forward on behalf of Prof. Kakoti was that she had no connection with any political party and neither had she ever participated in any protest-demonstration etc.
Teacher and satirist Madri Kakoti, whose online avatar Dr Medusa has 1,50,000 followers on X, was charged on April 29 with sedition and causing disharmony through a social media post on the April 22 attack in Pahalgam.
ABVP's Jati Shukla alias Manmohan Shukla had lodged an FIR with Hasanganj police station on April 28. Along with other sections in the said FIR, the police also imposed section 152 of BNS under which the punishment is up to life imprisonment.
Lucknow University had issued Kakoti a show-cause notice after ABVP students staged a protest on campus. Protesters alleged the teacher's remark had been reposted by a Pak media handle, tarnishing India's and the university's reputation. They submitted a memorandum to the vice-chancellor, demanding action against her.
The allegedly seditious post included a video in which Kakoti said that religious profiling before killing someone is terrorism, as is enquiring about religion before lynching.
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