The callousness with which these political dissidents are being treated goes against the Supreme Court's directive, given right at the beginning of the lockdown. The apex court had directed states to release prisoners to decongest jails, which had become hotspots of the coronavirus.
'India is now surrounded on its north, west and east by unfriendly neighbours -- Pakistan, China, Nepal and Bangladesh -- some of whom are openly inimical,' notes Amulya Ganguli.
Confrontation has erupted over reinstatement of Delhi University professor G N Saibaba, who is out on bail in a case of alleged Maoist links.
A professor of Delhi University was arrested by the Maharashtra police on Friday for his alleged links with Maoists, after questioning him more than four times in the last six months.
'If a Delhi University professor's rights can be violated so easily, then think about what the rest of the population, with even lesser means, has to suffer under the State.'
"You have been extremely unfair to the accused, especially looking at his medical condition. If material witnesses have been examined, then there is no point in putting him in jail," the bench said to the police.
'That is how our machinery operates and sees every prisoner.'
'The wrong person had to spend a banvaas of 14 years on a wrong charge.'
Jyoti Punwani reports on the strange case of Prashant Rahi, MTech, journalist, activist, now in solitary confinement in a Maharashtra prison.
'These charges of the prosecution will fall to the ground and I am 100 per cent sure of that.'
Suspended Delhi University Professor G N Saibaba and five others were on Tuesday convicted by a sessions court for their links with the Maoists.
On January 1 in 2018, violence erupted at an event to mark 100 years of the Bhima-Koregaon battle, leaving one dead and several injured, including 10 policemen.
Maharashtra police on Tuesday raided the homes of prominent Left-wing activists in several states and arrested at least five of them for suspected Maoist links. Near simultaneous searches were carried out at the residences of prominent Telugu poet Varavara Rao in Hyderabad, activists Vernon Gonzalves and Arun Farreira in Mumbai, trade union activist Sudha Bhardwaj in Faridabad, and civil liberties activist Gautam Navalakha in New Delhi. Subsequently, Rao, Bhardwaj and Farreira were arrested. Although Navalakha was also arrested, the Delhi high court ordered police not to take him out of the national capital at least until Wednesday. According to unconfirmed reports, others whose residences were raided are Susan Abraham, Kranthi Tekula, Father Stan Swamy in Ranchi and Anand Teltumbde in Goa. The raids were carried out as part of a probe into the violence between Dalits and the upper caste Peshwas at Koregaon-Bhima village near Pune after an event called Elgar Parishad, or conclave, on December 31 last year. Here are their brief profiles:
'They (the government) want to tame everything.' 'The entire systems they are trying to change.'
'People are beaten at the slightest provocation, paraded completely naked and then tortured. Did you know the number of prison deaths is the highest in Maharashtra? The one year I was in jail, 98 prisoners died.' 'The judges did warn the jail authorities, but they didn't care. They even violated the high court's order regarding my treatment. One judge asked my lawyer: "Can I go and implement my orders there?"' Professor G N Saibaba, who is 90 per cent handicapped, speaks of his ordeal in a Nagpur jail after being arrested for protesting against the Centre's anti-Naxal and anti-Adivasi campaign.
Over 200 teachers from across India and abroad have written to Delhi University's vice-chancellor asking him to revoke Professor G N Saibaba's suspension so that he can rejoin his college.
'When Arnab Goswami's arrest became a talking point, the case of my husband who was arrested much earlier, was totally ignored.' 'When so many people spoke in support of Goswami, they were silent on a journalist named Siddique Kappan'
Some of the letters exchanged between the arrested activists spoke of planning 'some big action' which would attract attention, Singh said.
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