Delhi court denies anticipatory bail to man accused of framing brother-in-law in Charlie Kirk assassination

A Delhi court on Wednesday refused to grant anticipatory bail to a man accused of impersonating his brother-in-law and sending fake emails to United States law enforcement agencies confessing to the assassination of conservative political commentator Charlie Kirk.  

Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Hargurvarinder Singh of the Saket Court rejected the plea, stating that the allegations against accused Michael Ashish Mukherjee disclose a “highly sophisticated, vindictive, and perilous cybercrime with international ramifications”.

“Creating fake email IDs to impersonate a citizen and sending fabricated assassination confessions to foreign federal agencies (FBI, DHS) about the assassination of Charlie Kirk, resulted in actual, imminent danger to the victim/complainant, Prateek Paul, who happens to be the brother-in-law of the applicant/accused, Michael Ashish Mukherjee,” the Court observed. 

The case arose from a matrimonial dispute between Mukherjee and his wife, who had filed for divorce on grounds of cruelty and adultery. The FIR was registered against Mukherjee on a complaint by his brother-in-law Prateek Paul, a PhD scholar at Columbia University in New York. 

It was alleged that Mukherjee launched a campaign of cyber harassment and criminal intimidation by creating fake email accounts impersonating Paul. Using those accounts, he allegedly sent fabricated communications to the FBI, the US Department of Justice and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), falsely confessing in Paul's name to the assassination of Charlie Kirk. 

The emails included Paul's passport, visa and New York identity card to lend authenticity to the claims. 

The prosecution further claimed that the emails prompted agents of the US Department of Homeland Security to visit Paul's residence in New York on October 8, 2025, to detain him.

It was also alleged that Mukherjee made false complaints to Qatar immigration authorities against his wife and to the Indian Income Tax Department accusing his mother-in-law of a ₹5 crore tax fraud. 

After considering the case, the court noted that Mukherjee had concealed that the Delhi High Court had previously convicted him for contempt of court and issued non-bailable warrants against him. 

It also observed that he had suppressed material facts and that pre-arrest bail could jeopardise the recovery of crucial digital evidence. 

Hence, it denied his plea for anticipatory bail.

[Read Order]