Tuesday, August 28, 2018

India Alert : Human Rights Activists raided in Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Telangana, Delhi, Haryana and Goa.



Democracy and Class Struggle says those that refuse to see the Fascism rising in India are blind - wake up world to the outrages committed daily in India and in particular to this attack on human rights activists throughout today.

Raise people from their sleep - darkness is covering the beloved Land of India - Fascism is rising.

The raids occurred in Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Telangana, Delhi, Haryana and Goa.

Mumbai/Panaji - The Pune Police on Tuesday conducted raids on Dalit and human rights activists in Maharashtra, Telangana, Delhi, Haryana and Goa and arrested activists Vernon Gonsalves in Mumbai, Gautam Navlakha in Delhi, Sudha Bharadwaj in Haryana, and poet Varavara Rao in Hyderabad.

Sources said raids were also conducted at the homes of Mr. Rao’s daughter in Hyderabad, Mr. Navlakha and Ms. Bhardwaj’s homes in Delhi and Haryana respectively, and professor Anand Teltumbde’s house in Goa.

Maharashtra

In Mumbai, the homes of Arun Ferreira and Susan Abraham were raided. Sources said the raids began around 6 a.m. at Mr. Ferreira’s Thane residence and the Andheri homes of Mr. Gonsalves and Ms. Abraham.

Mr. Gonsalves is a human rights lawyer and activist. Mr. Gonsalves and Mr. Ferreira were earlier accused of Naxalite connections, but were acquitted of related charges.

Ms. Abraham is a civil liberties lawyer and is part of the Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights (CPDR).

Delhi

Activist Gautam Navlakha being arrested by the Pune police in Delhi on Tuesday.

Jharkhand

In Jharkhand, Father Stan Swamy’s school-cum-residential premises was raided by the Jharkhand police.

The premises is inside a military cantonment in Bagaicha area in Namkum, which is one of administrative blocks in Ranchi. Father Swamy runs a school for Adivasi children and a technical training institute. Locals said he has not been taken into custody.

Telangana

Varavara Rao was arrested by Pune police in Hyderabad, following raids on his flat in the city in a case relating to an alleged conspiracy to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
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Mr. Rao was taken to the Nampally Court in Hyderabad.
Special teams of Pune police, assisted by their local Telangana counterparts, also raided the flat of a senior journalist K.V. Kurmanath and T. Kranthi, a photographer in Hyderabad. Mr. Kurmanath is Mr. Rao’s son-in-law. They both live in separate flats in Himasai apartment building in Ashoknagar.

Haryana

Sudha Bharadwaj has been produced in the court of Civil Judge Sakshi Saini in Faridabad. Justice Saini has asked the Investigation Officer to translate the application for Transit Remand in Hindi.

JNU professor Jayati Ghosh, accompanying Ms. Bharadwaj, alleged that the Maharashtra Police seized two laptops, two mobile phones and a pen drive from the house of Ms. Bharadwaj.

She was also forced to share her Gmail and other social media account passwords. A diary with several blank pages was also seized by the police, said Ms. Ghosh. She said that Ms. Bharadwaj feared tampering of the gadgets and diary to frame her.

Ms. Bharadwaj told the court that she was not connected to the present case in any manner, and that her name was also not there in the FIR. She said that she was being targeted as authorities thought that she espoused a particular ideology. 

She said that her laptops, mobile phones and a pen drive was seized, but she was not given the copy of the data. Her counsel sought transit bail from the court so that she could approach proper forum in Maharashtra Court.

Goa

Sources close to Prof. Anand Teltumbde confirmed the raid at his on-campus premises at the Goa Institute of Management (GIM), located in Sanquelim in North Goa, where he is a senior professor.

“He is d arrived at the campus with sanction to raid his house,” said a source at the GIM requesting anonymity.out of Goa and his house was locked. operations, project management, and business analytics” at GIM. He is also a Dalit scholar, writer and social commentator.

Superintendent of Police Karthik Kashyap, head of Crime Branch of Goa police, when contacted, said that their personnel were not involved in the raid nor was the Goa police informed about the raids.

Reactions

The CPI (M) Politburo released a statement on the arrests, saying, “Ever since the Bhima Koregoan violence against Dalits, the Maharashtra Police along with central agencies have been targeting Dalit rights activists and lawyers who have been taking up their cases.

False charges have been levelled and the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act invoked.These constitute a brazen attack on democratic rights and civil liberties.

The Polit Bureau demands the withdrawal of the cases against these activists and their immediate release.”


Source: https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/pune-police-raid-activists-homes-across-four-states/article24799729.ece?homepage=true

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