GUWAHATI: Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) PhD student Sharjeel Imam, who has been lodged at the Central Jail in Guwahati, has tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
According to media reports, Imam was slated to be brought to Delhi on July 25.
After the swab samples confirmed that he is positive for COVID-19 but asymptomatic, Delhi Police has now decided to delay his transfer after Sharjeel.
The student’s activist has been shifted to an isolated ward of the jail.
Imam was in the eye of a storm for his alleged “inflammatory” speech in Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia over Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) on December 13 and subsequently on January 16 at Aligarh Muslim University, where he allegedly threatened to “cut off” Assam and the rest of the northeast from the country.
Imam was arrested on January 28 from his home town Jahanabad in Bihar by Delhi Police and the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act was invoked against the former JNU scholar.