Renowned civil rights activist Teesta Setalvad was reportedly detained in Varanasi, hours after she was first held by the Uttar Pradesh police on Monday morning. Setalvad, who has often found herself in the Sangh parivar’s line of fire for her fiery anti-communal activism, told The Wire that she was first detained at the city’s airport while headed to attend a youth training camp organised by the Samajwadi Jan Parishad, a political party, and deliver a valedictory speech on “communalism and education.”

She was later released a little after 7 pm.

Her detention assumes significance as Varanasi, also the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency, has been in the news for the last two days because of a lathi charge by the UP police on protesting students from the Banaras Hindu University (BHU). The students were protesting against the university administration for failing to act on a sexual abuse complaint by a woman student. The students have alleged that the university authorities, instead of bringing the culprits to task, tried to shift the blame on the student for being out of the hostel in the evening, at around 6 pm, before curfew.

Speaking to The Wire, Setalvad said, “I had come to Varanasi for a meeting which was planned one and a half months ago. But I was surprised to see local policemen accosting me quite rudely at the luggage counter of the airport. They did not let me out of the airport, following which I had an argument with them.”