Jamshedpur teacher seeks bail in 2017 beef remark case

JAMSHEDPUR: Two days after an Adivasi activist and contract teacher, Jeetrai Hansdah, was arrested for a two-year-old Facebook post on consumption of beef, his lawyer Dilip Mahto on Monday moved a local court for bail.
Mahto said, "Police have wrongly implicated my client. His plea for anticipatory bail was pending with the Jharkhand high court for hearing, but as he is arrested now, we are moving the court of chief judicial magistrate for regular bail." He added that his client was arrested by Sakchi police on Saturday and put him in the Gagidih Central prison on Sunday. Jharkhand bans cow slaughter, eating or selling of beef.
Hansdah, who teaches theatre on a contract basis at the Graduate School College for Women at Sakchi in Jamshedpur, posted on Facebook about his community's "right" to eat beef. His FB post on May 29, 2017 had also described how eating beef was a ritual in the Santhal custom. Later, a controversy erupted over his post and Jeetrai deleted it. However, the college took exception to his post and did not renew his job contract even after he tendered an apology.
Meanwhile, a section of Akhil Bharatiya Vidhyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student outfit of BJP, staged demonstrations against him demanding an FIR and also pressed the college administration to remove him from the post.
Asked why the arrest came so late, Sakchi police station in-charge, R K Singh said, "He was absconding since the case was lodged in June that year and a court arrest warrant was pending against him." Police also claimed that they had raided Hansdah's house in Sundernagar for more than 10 times in the last one year but he was on the run.
Hansdah, however, reportedly went out of the state to work in a private organisation after his former college didn't extended his service contract. He was in town to attend a tribal film award ceremony when police arrested him.
Reacting to his arrest, ex-MLA and JMM's district president, Ramdas Soren, said: "Tribals eat beef in several parts of the country and Hansdah has rightly said so on his Facebook page. What wrong has he done?" District Congress leader Bijay Khan said: "I am not aware of the specifics of the case of Hansdah but it's true that the Freedom of Expression has been under attack in the recent years."