India Against Corruption volunteers protested early on Monday at the Bandra police station where cartoonist Aseem Trivedi was lodged and demanded to meet him. Mayank Gandhi, Mumbai coordinator of IAC who was later permitted to meet Trivedi in the Bandra lock-up said, “It is a longdrawn battle and we support him.”
On the other hand, Maharashtra home minister R.R. Patil, in an attempt to distance the government from the row, said it was trying to seek the release of the artist who has been charged with sedition.
He also claimed that his department had nothing to do with the complaint filed against Trivedi. “The government was considering Trivedi’s case sympathetically and trying to seek his release,” he said.
When Trivedi was taken to the court on Monday afternoon from the Bandra lock-up, he waved from the police jeep amidst heavy sloganeering from the IAC volunteers. IAC members carried placards that read, “Kasab ko biryani, desh bhakto ko jail (biryani for Kasab, jail for nationalists).”
The cartoonist has written a letter from the Bandra lock-up in which he calls himself a 'true citizen' and 'not a traitor'.
In the letter, Trivedi made it clear that he would continue to fight against the sedition law from jail and would thus not apply for bail. Trivedi was charged with sedition under Section 124 A of the Indian Penal Code.