New Delhi, April 25 -- The United States' federal government defended its arrest of Columbia University student activist Mahmoud Khalil without a warrant. The government said agents feared that Khalil would flee because he said he would leave the scene.

Khalil has been held in a detention center in Jena, Louisiana, for six weeks. He is a legal permanent US resident and graduate student who served as spokesperson for campus activists last year during large demonstrations at Columbia against Israel's treatment of Palestinians and the war in Gaza.

He was detained by federal agents in the lobby of his Manhattan apartment on March 8, the first arrest in President Donald Trump's crackdown on pro-Palestinian activists.

The Trump administratio...