Abhijit Iyer Mitra In Jharpada Jail, Police Seek 7-Day Remand

Bhubaneswar: Konark Police have sought seven-day remand of Research scholar Abhijit Iyer Mitra for interrogation in connection with his derogatory remarks on the Sun Temple of Konark, Odisha, Lord Jagannath and the legislators of the Odisha Assembly.

After interrogation at Saheed Nagar police station, Abhijit was produced in the Sub-Divisional Judicial Magistrate (SDJM) court on Tuesday night. The court remanded him to judicial custody for 14 days after rejecting his bail petition. He was then sent the Jharpada jail.

“The police are aware of my argument that my client was fully cooperating in the investigation. His Tweets are more than a year old, there was no reason why they should suddenly become so offensive. The cases are about outraging the feeling. You don’t feel a sense of outrage one year after something is said. If you feel the outrage, you should feel it immediately. This was the line of my argument,” Abhijit’s counsel Nikhil Mehera told mediapersons.

Asked about his next move since the court has rejected the bail plea of his client, Mehera said he will proceed only after going through the order of the court in detail.

Meanwhile, the Konark Police has also prayed the court to take Abhijit on a 7-day remand for interrogation. The court is expected to hear the appeal on Wednesday.

It may be recalled that during his recent visit to the Sun temple, Abhijit had posted a video in his Twitter account in which he had given the lewd and outrageous statements on the temple architecture and the stone idols.

On the other hand, the Saheed Nagar police, in a mail to the Twitter, have sought the details regarding e-mail account on which Abhijit had opened his Twitter account, the mobile through which he was handling the social media and the date and time of his posts. The police have also requestedTwitter to furnish the details of the tweets Abhijit had posted about Odisha, Lord Jagannath, the Sun temple and the legislators of the State Assembly.

The House Committee of the State Assembly on Tuesday had recorded the statement of Abhijit after a marathon two-phase interrogation and asked him to appear in person again on November 2 and submit an affidavit. The committee, after going through the affidavit, will submit its report to the State Assembly for its next course of action.