Scholar and academician Madhu Purnima Kishwar skipped her second appearance before Chandigarh Police on Saturday, escalating her confrontation with the force by accusing it of deliberately withholding the FIR to lay the ground for her arrest — and warning that she would rather plead for a death sentence than spend a day in “Modi sarkar’s jail”.”Modi Hai to Kucch Bhi Mumkin Hai,” Kishwar said, in a pointed swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “Will plead for a death sentence rather than stay in Modi sarkar’s jail!”A senior Chandigarh Police official confirmed to The Tribune that Kishwar had not joined the investigation as directed and that no fresh notice had been issued to her so far. “Not joined. No fresh notice yet,” the official said.Kishwar maintained that Chandigarh Police had still not provided her a copy of FIR No. 44, registered on April 19 at Police Station Sector-26, despite repeated requests — and had not uploaded it on the police website either.Recalling her representation to Chandigarh Police DGP Dr Sagar Preet Hooda, she alleged the omission was deliberate. “Lawyer friends tell me this is being deliberately done to prepare the ground for my arrest,” she said. “Since I have repeatedly said that I will cooperate fully with the investigation as soon as I get a copy of the FIR, they are likely to use my non-compliance with their notice to appear on April 25 as a pretext to get an arrest order against me from a magistrate.”This is the second time in succession that Kishwar has skipped a police summons. She had earlier failed to appear on April 22, raising two objections — that the notice served on her carried an incorrect Twitter handle (@mandukishwar instead of her actual handle @madhukishwar), and that police had not provided her the FIR copy without which she said she could not prepare her defence.BackgroundFollowing her April 22 no-show, Chandigarh Police served Kishwar a second notice directing her to appear on April 25. On April 23, she wrote to Chandigarh Director General of Police Dr Sagar Preet Hooda, urging him to upload the FIR on the police website and provide her a certified copy, citing Supreme Court rulings that mandate supply of FIR copy to the accused and its online upload within 24 hours of registration. She attached a screenshot showing the FIR had not been uploaded even days after registration.The FIR was registered on a complaint filed on April 19 by city-based advocate Satinder Singh, alleging that Kishwar and certain other social media users circulated forged and misleading posts and obscene video content that misidentified a person in the clip. The case has been booked under Sections 196 (promoting enmity between groups), 336(1) (forgery) and 356 (criminal defamation) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, along with relevant provisions of the IT Act.Two separate teams of Chandigarh Police had visited Kishwar’s Delhi office on the nights of April 21 and April 22 to serve notices. The first team arrived well past 10 pm — prompting Kishwar to invoke the legal bar on police visiting women after dark — while the second team returned the following morning and formally served the notice.