11-year-old girl’s mother, teacher granted bail in Bidar sedition case

BIDAR: Sixteen days after they were arrested in a sedition case, the mother of an 11-year-old girl, who allegedly
made a remark against the PM during a play on the controversial citizenship law, and an Urdu teacher were granted bail by a local court on Friday.
The district principal and sessions judge granted conditional bail to Najbunnisa and Fareeda Begum, who’s the headmistress of Shaheen primary school in Bidar, northernmost district 680km from Bengaluru, after asking them to execute a Rs 1-lakh bond with two sureties.
With this, the daughter will be reunited with her mother by Saturday, sources said.
11 advocates defend sedition case accused
After Najbunnisa was arrested on January 30, her daughter, a class 6 student, was living with a neighbour for 10 days before she was shifted to the school hostel. Najbunnisa was arrested on charges of tutoring her daughter to utter a line that wasn’t part of the approved script in the play. Fareeda is facing charges of allowing the girl to make a remark against the Prime Minister. Following a complaint filed by Neelesh Rakshyala, police booked an FIR on January 26 invoking sedition charge and arrested the girl’s mother and the teacher on January 30.
Before and after the arrest of the duo, police entered the Shaheen school premises and interrogated classes 4, 5 and 6 students, who acted in the play, for five days. This kicked off a furore, forcing police to withdraw from school premises.
A team of 11 advocates led by BT Venkatesh appeared for the accused. After hearing the arguments on February 11, the judge reserved the order for Friday. The two women have been directed not to leave the police jurisdiction without permission from the investigation officer.
School CEO Thouseef Madikeri said he “still couldn’t believe a satire on the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, and the proposed National Register of Citizens attracted the charge of sedition and our children were interrogated for over five days”.