{"id":27644,"date":"2026-01-03T05:58:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T05:58:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/?p=27644"},"modified":"2026-01-03T05:58:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T05:58:22","slug":"us-lawmakers-write-to-indian-ambassador-expressing-concern-over-umar-khalids-prolonged-detention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/?p=27644","title":{"rendered":"US Lawmakers Write to Indian Ambassador Expressing Concern Over Umar Khalid&#8217;s Prolonged Detention"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"512\" src=\"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image-4-1024x512.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-27647\" srcset=\"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image-4-1024x512.png 1024w, https:\/\/gsrra.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image-4-300x150.png 300w, https:\/\/gsrra.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image-4-768x384.png 768w, https:\/\/gsrra.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image-4.png 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>A group of US lawmakers has expressed their concern over the prolonged pre-trial detention of student activist and scholar Umar Khalid and have written to Vinay Mohan Kwatra, the Indian Ambassador in Washington, over the issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Urging that Khalid be granted bail, in their letter, the Members of the US Congress and the US Senate said that Khalid\u2019s confinement in jail for almost five years \u201craises serious questions about due process, human rights and India\u2019s obligations under international law\u201d,&nbsp;<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tribuneindia.com\/news\/india\/us-lawmakers-urge-india-to-free-riot-accused-khalid\/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">reported&nbsp;<em>The Tribune<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The leaders who have signed the letter include senior Democratic leaders, including Congressman James P. McGovern and Jamie Raskin, Senators Chris Van Hollen and Peter Welch, and Congress members Pramila Jayapal, Jan Schakowsky, Rashida Tlaib and Lloyd Doggett.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The signatories have placed their concerns within the framework of the India-US strategic partnership and said that the world\u2019s largest democracies, the two countries, shared a common responsibility to uphold freedom, rule of law, human rights, and pluralism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt is in this spirit that we raise the following concerns,\u201d states the letter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The lawmakers noted that the protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) passed in late-2019, which gradually led to the arrest of Khali,d were described by a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights as \u201cfundamentally discriminatory\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The letter added that the fairness of the investigations and trials has been consistently questioned by rights organisations, legal experts, and the international media, reported The Tribune.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The lawmakers said that pressing terrorism charges against Khalid is based on \u201csecret witnesses and misconstrued speech\u201d, and also highlighted the fact that independent rights investigations didn\u2019t find any evidence linking him to terrorist activity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On December 11, a Delhi court\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/thewire.in\/law\/umar-khalid-granted-interim-bail-for-two-weeks-to-attend-sisters-wedding\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">had granted interim bail<\/a>\u00a0to Khalid for two weeks to attend his sister\u2019s wedding.\u00a0 Khalid, along with Sharjeel Imam, Gulfisha Fatima, and Meeran Haider, has been jailed for over five years under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) over charges in connection with the \u2018larger conspiracy\u2019 case of the 2020 northeast Delhi riots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Reference Link:- <a href=\"https:\/\/thewire.in\/rights\/us-lawmakers-write-to-indian-ambassador-expressing-concern-over-umar-khalids-prolonged-detention\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/thewire.in\/rights\/us-lawmakers-write-to-indian-ambassador-expressing-concern-over-umar-khalids-prolonged-detention<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/thewire.in\/author\/thewirestaff\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A group of US lawmakers has expressed their concern over the prolonged pre-trial detention of student activist and scholar Umar Khalid and have written to Vinay Mohan Kwatra, the Indian Ambassador in Washington, over the issue. Urging that Khalid be granted bail, in their letter, the Members of the US Congress and the US Senate [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27648,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[12118,39,45,25884,25883,25882],"class_list":["post-27644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-aside","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sample-category","tag-human-rights-violation","tag-india","tag-kashmir","tag-india-atrocities-brutalities","tag-umar-khalids-prolonged-detention-questioned","tag-us-law-makers","post_format-post-format-aside"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27644"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27644\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27649,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27644\/revisions\/27649"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}