THE ARREST OF CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVISTS: WHO SAID WHAT

Rahul Gandhi: “Shut down all other NGOs. Jail all activists and shoot those that complain. Welcome to the new India.”

Abishek Manu Singhvi: “We don’t know what great threat they are to this great government’s national security. They are respectable people leading peaceful lives. They have no criminal record. They are arrested from their houses. This will have a larger chilling effect on dissent”

Justice DY Chandrachud: “They are all professors… Nine months after the probe, you arrest them. This affects dissent. Dissent is the safety valve of a democracy. If you don’t allow it, the pressure cooker will burst,”

Justice PB Sawant: “The present arbitrary and illegal actions let loose by the government have made the life of citizens insecure. Although the present regime does not appear to believe in democracy, it must abide by the Constitution.”

Admiral L Ramdas: “As a citizen and a service veteran, I feel it is my sacred duty to express my deep distress and concern, especially when too many of us, in keeping with one of the traditions with which we in uniform were trained, are silent. Our silence is not to be mistaken for consent.”

Brinda Karat CPI (M): “The greater danger arising from this situation is that the legal processes are being subverted. When you target and arrest lawyers, who are defending the poor, what is the message you (government) are trying to send.”

P Chidambaram, Congress: “They (those arrested) are civil rights activists, human rights activists, lawyers, writers and poets. They have extreme Left views. In a free country you can have extreme Left view, you can have extreme Right view... that is the essence of freedom. It is only when somebody indulges in violence or invites violence or aids or abets violence that he is committing a crime."