Hours after his release from Tihar jail in a sedition case, Jawaharlal Nehru University student Umar Khalid on Friday said he has no regrets of being jailed and was rather proud of being booked under the said charges.

"We have no regrets of being jailed in this particular case. We are in fact proud of the fact that we have been booked under sedition, a law under which activists like Arundhati Roy and Binayak Sen were booked," Khalid said.

"Our names have been added to the list of those who have been jailed for raising their voices," he told a gathering at the varsity.

In a 35-minute speech, Umar said, "I am not ashamed that I was in jail. Criminals are those who are in power, those in jail are the ones who raise their voice."

"I also don't think that freedom of expression is in danger. It only belongs to those in power. People like (Pravin) Togadia and Yogi Adityanath have all the freedom of expression," he said.

Umar claimed that he was being labelled a terrorist because of Islam, which, he said, he did not practise.

"I never followed Islam but I was called Islamist terrorist. It was not just my trial but entire Muslim community's trial. But I want to ask what if I was practicing Muslim? What if I came from Azamgarh and wore a skull cap? That will be enough to give me a terrorist certificate," he said.

Khalid, who was welcomed at the gathering by JNU Students' Union president Kanhaiya Kumar and his 6-year-old sister Sara, said, "Those who are raising concerns about wastage of taxpayers' money, we want to tell them we are not going to go back to studies now that we are back from jail. By jailing us you have given bigger responsibilities on our shoulders and we will fulfil that by fighting."