Hyderabad, Sept. 18 -- On September 13, 2020, Umar Khalid, a young human rights activist, was targeted in the national capital. He has now completed six years in prison without trial. These six years mark a period in which the government used the legal system to imprison an individual for holding political dissent.

The image from February 2, 2020, still lingers in public memory: Umar Khalid addressing a crowd at Shaheen Bagh, Delhi. That crowd had gathered against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC). What began as a protest in December 2019 soon turned into a symbol of resistance, as Muslim women stepped forward to lead the opposition to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) disc...