Condemn the abduction of Dr. G.N. Saibaba! ICAWPI - Toronto

 

On May 9th, 2014, Dr. G.N. Saibaba, an English professor at Delhi University, was in his car returning home to eat lunch. Dr. Saibaba has been an anti-imperialist activist for a number of years and is the joint convenor of the Revolutionary Democratic Front.

He has spoken at a number of different political forums around the world about the issues that affect the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of peasants and workers across India.

Due to his active opposition to the neo-liberal agenda of the Indian state and its American and European overlords, the police has harassed Dr. Saibaba for a number of years. The police ransacked his home earlier this year, although he was not arrested because of popular outrage in India and abroad.

On the way home after invigilating an exam, Saibaba was stopped by plainclothes police officers from the state of Maharashtra. Saibaba resides and was arrested in Delhi, which is a completely different state in India.

He was arrested, blindfolded, and then taken, against his will and with no opportunity to contact legal consul, first to a police station and then to Delhi Airport, forced to board a plane for Maharashtra.

Meanwhile, when Saibaba did not return home for lunch his wife tried to contact him with no luck.

She only later received a phone call from the Maharashtra state police, who explained to her that her husband had been arrested and was being taken to Maharashtra to face a charge sheet. When she asked about his charges, the phone call was abruptly cancelled.

Noted author, journalist and activist Arundhati Roy has denounced this arrest. “This is a brazen flouting of the constitutional rights of a citizen,” she stated: “Earlier, it was just confined to poor villages where no one would question the rapes and abductions, but now it has reached cities too.” We, the members of Toronto’s Proletarian Revolutionary Action Committee (PRAC), who are also involved in the International Campaign Against the War on the People in India (ICAWPI), demand the immediate release of Saibaba and condemn this arbitrary and unconstitutional arrest.

Already a wave of protest condemning this arrest has begun in India; it is vital that democratic, progressive and revolutionary-minded people around the world mobilize against this regime of harassment and arbitrary arrests.

ICAWPI-Toronto
(International Campaign Against the War on the People in India)
Proletarian Revolutionary Action Committee-Toronto
May 10th, 2014

 

Source : http://www.pcr-rcp.ca/en/archives/1284