Student activist Umar Khalid on Tuesday, 12 May, was left jubilant, after his PhD thesis was cleared by the Jawaharlal Nehru University administration.
Taking to Twitter, Khalid in a post wrote, “Successfully defended my PhD today. Finally, it's Dr Umar Khalid.”
“Special thanks to Dr Sangeeta Dasgupta, Prof Prabhu Mahapatra and Prof Rohan D’Souza, JNU community and all who stood by me in last few tumultuous year,” he added.
In 2016, Khalid shot to limelight after he, along with Kanhaiya Kumar and Anirban Bhattacharya, was charged with sedition and arrested for allegedly organising an event in solidarity with Afzal Guru – who was convicted for his role in the 2001 Indian Parliament attack, and later executed by hanging.
Citing the 2016 sedition charges, a high level enquiry committee in July 2018 had refused to unblock the process required to submit his PhD thesis.
Following this, Khalid moved to Delhi High Court and challenged the order passed by the JNU enquiry committee. The HC in August, cleared the roadblock and ordered JNU to accept his doctoral research.
Khalid’s research is a study on the life of tribals in Jharkhand.
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