A group of NLSIU students delays the screening of the Umar Khalid documentary due to security concerns.

A documentary about imprisoned activist Umar Khalid was supposed to film at the National Law School of India University (NLSIU) on Monday, September 14 at 7 p.m., however it has been postponed due to “logistical and security considerations.” The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) objected to the event’s rescheduling, but the organisers insisted they were not giving in to pressure from anyone.

Lalit Vachani’s documentary Prisoner No. 626710 is Present will be screened on campus on September 14 at 7 p.m. by the Law & Society Committee (Law Soc), a student organization at NLSIU. On September 13, Political Prisoners’ Day, and the sixth anniversary of Umar Khalid’s imprisonment, a screening was scheduled in his honour.

Umar Khalid, a former student leader at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), has been detained since September 2020 after being detained in relation to the Delhi riots case. He has not yet been put on trial after being charged under the UAPA and other legal requirements.

An email from Law Soc announcing the rescheduling of the screening said, “The postponement is a precautionary step taken to ensure that the screening can be held in a safe and responsible manner,” adding that it will be held this trimester.

According to Bar and Bench’s sources, the event was rescheduled since it fell on Ganesh Chaturthi, which would have complicated security plans.

However, ABVP asked that the event be cancelled, claiming that their resistance was the reason for the screening’s postponement. The RSS-backed student group had previously claimed that it had sent an official protest via email to the NLSIU administration, requesting an end to the screening, but had not heard back. A debate on Umar Khalid’s book, Fractured Communities: Adivasi Histories and the Politics of Power, was supposed to take place at NLSIU in August, but permission was cancelled by the JNU administration in Delhi a few weeks prior. The book is an adaptation of Umar Khalid’s doctoral thesis, which he finished while working as a research scholar at JNU. JNU cancelled the auditorium reservation one day prior to the event, citing “non-disclosure of the full facts about the program.” The venue’s cancellation was attributed to ABVP.  Members of the ABVP disrupted the discussion, which was later convened at a separate location on the JNU campus.