Blow to free speech as five activists arrested
Dissent is the safety valve of democracy, says Supreme Court
Revolutionary writer and activist Varavara Rao was among the five activists arrested by the Vishrambaug police, Pune, on Tuesday last in connection with the Elgar Parishad event that led to the violence in Pune on December 31, last year.
A case was registered against the five accused under sections 153 (b), 505, 120 (b) r/w 34, and sections 13, 16, 17, 18 (b), 20, 38, 39 and 40 of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, by the Vishrambaug police for the probe.
However, the next day, observing that dissent is the safety valve of democracy, the Supreme Court on said the five activists Sudha Bharadwaj, Gautam Navlakha, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves and P. Varavara Rao, arrested by the police in relation to Bhima-Koregaon violence be kept in ‘house arrest’ till September 6.
Near simultaneous searches were carried out at the residences of Mr Rao in Hyderabad, activists Mr Gonzalves and Mr Ferreira in Mumbai, trade union activist Ms Bhardwaj in Faridabad and civil liberties activist Mr Navalakha in New Delhi.
The Pune police termed the raids as a crackdown on urban setup of naxalism whose alleged instigation led to the rioting at Bhima Koregaon of January this year, near Pune during commemoration of war fought between dalit and Maratha community 200 years ago.
A top police officer had said that information received during probe of earlier five arrests and information got through electronic devices seized led to the arrests of these five activists. “We could establish that they are members of core committee of banned Communist Party of India Maoist,” he said.
According to officials, two letters exchanged by Maoist leaders, indicated plans to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah and home minister Rajnath Singh, led to police action against prominent Left-wing activists. While the 2016 letter suggested that there were deliberations among the Maoists to kill Mr Modi,Mr Shah and Mr Singh, the 2017 letter referred to a plan to carry out a Rajiv Gandhi assassinationtype attack on the Prime Minister during one of his roadshows, they claimed.
Mr Rao was arrested from his house at Gandhinagar in Hyderabad. police teams from Pune, headed by DCP Suhas Bawache and assisted by the local task force, searched the houses of Mr Rao’s sons-in-law - K.V. Kurmanath, journalist working for a national daily, Satynarayana, professor at EFLU (English and Foreign Languages University) and also the house of T. Purushotham Reddy alias Kranthi, a journalist working for a regional daily.
The simultaneous searches started at 6 am and lasted till 1.30 pm at the houses of Mr Rao, Mr Kurmanath and Mr Kranthi, which ended with the arrest of Mr Rao. The police had cordoned off the residential areas and did not allow outsiders to enter the apartments in which the searches were carried out.
In the first week of June, the Pune police arrested activist Sudhir Dhawale in Mumbai, advocate Surendra Gadling, Mahesh Raut and Shoma Sen from Nagpur and Rona Wilson from Delhi. Letters recovered from Mr Wilson which were written by Mr Gadling purportedly indicated that Mr Rao would arrange funds to carry out ‘attacks’. However, Mr Rao has denied the allegations.