Badar Khan Suri, an Indian-origin postdoctoral associate at Georgetown University in the US, has been arrested and faces deportation. He has been teaching a class on “Majoritarianism and Minority Rights in South Asia.” According to a statement from the Georgetown University spokesperson, Mr Suri obtained a US visa “to continue his doctoral research on peacebuilding in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Mr Suri was arrested by “masked agents” outside his home in Virginia, on Monday night, Politico reported. He has been accused of “spreading Hamas propaganda” and said to have “close connections to a known or suspected terrorist”.
“Suri was a foreign exchange student at Georgetown University actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media,” Tricia McLaughlin, Assistant Secretary Department of Homeland Security, wrote on X.
“Suri has close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas. The Secretary of State issued a determination on March 15, 2025 that Suri’s activities and presence in the United States rendered him deportable under INA section 237(a)(4)(C)(i).”
About Badar Khan Suri
Dr Badar Khan Suri is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, Washington, DC.
He completed his PhD in Peace and Conflict Studies from Nelson Mandela Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi in 2020.
He wrote his thesis on “Transitional Democracy, Divided Societies and Prospects for Peace: A Study of State Building in Afghanistan and Iraq” in which he underlined the complexities involved in introducing democracy in ethnically diverse societies; as well as challenges to project state building.
He is an interdisciplinary scholar whose areas of interest are religion, violence and peace; ethnic conflicts and peace processes in the Middle East and South Asia, according to the information available on Georgetown University’s website. Mr Suri’s profile on the website has now been made private and requires login to access information.
His wife, Mapheze Saleh, is from Gaza and a first-year student at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University. She is a US citizen.