MUMBAI: An Indian court on Monday sent a cartoonist to jail to await trial on sedition charges over sketches that lampoon government corruption, triggering an outcry from freedom of expression campaigners.

The detention of Aseem Trivedi, a freelance artist whose cartoons include parliament depicted as a giant toilet bowl, has been cited as the latest example of growing intolerance of criticism from Indian authorities.

A local court in Mumbai on Monday ordered the cartoonist, who refused to apply for bail, to be held in custody until September 24, his lawyer Vijay Hiremath said.

“His position is that he is not anti-nationalist and sedition charges should be dropped,” Hiremath said.

Cartoons on Trivedi's website show the sole surviving gunman from the 2008 Mumbai attacks urinating on the Indian constitution, while another image is titled “Gang Rape of Mother India”.

He was arrested on Saturday under laws governing sedition, information technology and protecting India's national flag and constitution.

“We are very unhappy about the arrest as he has not committed any crime, he has just exercised his freedom of expression through his cartoons,” V.G.

Narendra, head of the Indian Institute of Cartoonists, told AFP.

“Cartoonists should be given a free hand. We must have the ability to laugh at ourselves.”Earlier this year Trivedi established Save Your Voice, a group lobbying against Internet censorship, while he is also a supporter of India Against Corruption (IAC), the popular anti-graft campaign lead by Anna Hazare.

A statement from IAC said they were “shocked” at the way he was treated by police, saying he was “badly roughed up and pushed in to the police vehicle where his head banged against the vehicle”.

On Monday, about 100 IAC protesters loudly chanted outside the Mumbai police station where he was being held, while online petitions were circulated demanding his immediate release.

The government has recently been criticised for heavy-handed blocking of the Internet content in an attempt to calm ethnic tensions in Bangalore and other cities.—AFP