Film screening “Prisoner No. 626710 is Present

A film by Lalit Vachani
60 min; India/Germany 2024; Hindi and English with English subtitlesi

Date and Time: 16 January 2025, 7:30pm
Venue: Kino Lumière, Geismar Landstraße 19

Entry is free! Book your free ticket through the Lumière website

Prisoner No. 626710 waits interminably for a bail hearing in court… Meanwhile, two friends who await his release reminisce and discuss the events and the circumstances that led to his arrest.

Synopsis:
On September 13, 2020, Umar Khalid, a charismatic student leader who recently finished his PhD at India’s prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University, was arrested under the draconian UAPA (Unlawful Activities Prevention Act) – a law that designates individuals as terrorists and allows the Indian state to imprison people without due process. His crime? As an Indian Muslim, he had dared to protest against the new citizenship law that the Indian state was trying to impose on its people.

Using found footage of his past speeches along with a forensic analysis of how he was framed by the right-wing, Hindu nationalist media, Umar Khalid’s close friends Banojyotsna Lahiri and Shuddhabrata Sengupta reconstruct the chronology of events that led to his tragic imprisonment.

It has been 1,600 days since Umar Khalid was arrested. He and his friends still await a fair hearing in court.