Overview

• Supreme Court granted Mahmudabad interim bail until the third week of July and directed the SIT to confine its investigation to two FIRs related to his Facebook post.
• Mahmudabad’s social media commentary on Operation Sindoor praised India’s strategic restraint but criticized symbolic optics and minority treatment, prompting Haryana Police to arrest him on May 18.
• In an internal email, Sanjeev Bikhchandani described the controversy as “too much of a headache” and revealed he has discussed walking away from Ashoka over the fallout.
• Bikhchandani maintained that personal political opinions on social media do not constitute academic scholarship and that Ashoka is not obliged to defend faculty speech of that nature.
• Founders are criticized as “dirty filthy capitalists” despite being Ashoka’s primary funders and warn that institutional activist pressures could threaten future funding.