Bihar’s Jehanabad police on Tuesday detained the brother of Sharjeel Imam, a student of Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) booked for sedition after his alleged “inflammatory and instigating” speech.

Sharjeel Imam’s brother was picked during a raid at his ancestral home in Bihar. He is being questioned at in Kako police station in Jehanabad, police said.

A graduate in computer science from IIT-Mumbai, Sharjeel Imam had shifted to Delhi for pursuing research at the Centre for Historical Studies, JNU.

He was slapped with a sedition case by the Crime Branch of the Delhi Police after his alleged speeches went viral on the social media wherein he was heard speaking about Assam’s possible secession from the country in the wake of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA).

If convicted under Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) he could be imprisoned for life.

In a video that went viral on January 25, Sharjeel Imam is seen talking about splitting the northeast from India to block the implementation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC). “We know how Muslims are being treated in Assam. We have to save people from the NRC. The only way to do this is by cutting off northeast from India.”

On Sunday, Jehanabad police had conducted raids at the ancestral home of the self-proclaimed JNU student leader, who is currently at large.

Police sources quoted by IANS on Monday said a team of a “central probe agency” conducted raids in Kako town on Sunday, in a bid to trace Sharjeel and arrest him.

Earlier, he had been charged on similar charges at a police station in Aligarh for a speech he delivered on the AMU campus. Besides, a case under the stringent anti-terror law UAPA has been registered against him in Assam.

While the Delhi Police conducted raids in the national capital and nearby areas, the Uttar Pradesh Police and the Assam Police have been searching for him for some time in connection with the provocative statement in the national capital’s Shaheen Bagh area on January 13, which went viral on Saturday.

Meanwhile, the JNU Chief Proctor has summoned the research scholar to meet Proctorial Committee not later than February 3 to explain his position in connection with the FIRs lodged against him by the police of Delhi, UP and other states.