STATE SWOOPS DOWN ON RIGHTS ACTIVISTS
The Pune police on Tuesday swooped down on human right activists in six cities. The action was described as a follow-up on a plot to assassinate Prime Minister Modi, which had unravelled last month after the seizure of a letter from a Maoist sympathiser.
The raids were carried out simultaneously in Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Ranchi, Goa and Faridabad. They are seen by some as a sequel to raids carried out in the first round under the Bhima Koregaon cover -- the unsaid allegation being that the activists had hijacked a Dalit movement and provoked them into having a showdown with rightist Hindus.
The activists whose houses were raided on Tuesday included Arun Ferreira and Vernon Gonsalvez in Mumbai, journalist Gautam Navlakha in Delhi, Anand Teltumbde in Goa – he was not at home -- and Sudha Bhardwaj in Noida.
In Hyderabad, the houses of Varavara Rao and that of a journalist, Kurmanath, were raided.
Rao was arrested and produced before a local court to take him to Pune on remand. There is a specific charge against him that he was mentioned in the letter that discussed the plot to eliminate the prime minister.
In Ranchi, the Pune police raided the residence of Father Stan Swamy and seized computers, laptops, CDs, papers and books. He was also quizzed about his contacts with some organisations in Maharashtra.
A Naxalite group in Delhi said the raids were intended to divert attention from the arrest of some activists of the Sanathan Sanstha in Maharashtra last week.
"You will not be able to silence any of us. You will not be able to crush us, however hard you try. Ours is a peaceful struggle and not terrorism in which the Hindu rightist groups engage," a Naxalite leader stated in a message on the WhatsApp. Well-known journalist Rajdeep Sardesai, who cannot be dubbed a Naxalite by any stretch of imagination, also expressed shock that the government was targeting human right activists. Referring to Bhima Koregaon incident, he tweeted: "In the 'new' India, human rights activists will be arrested but no one wants to touch groups like Sanathan Sanstha! And the country stays silent!’’
Sardesai was not alone to express shock. There was a flood of reactions on Twitter, questioning the raids.
Another journalist, Nikhil Wagle, tweeted: "The police is not able to provide evidence in the Bhima-Koregaon case wherein they arrested five so-called Maoists. Now, they are raiding more human right activists. What’s going on? Is it vendetta?"
One ‘Scotchy’ tweeted that the activists were arrested on the basis of a story cooked up by a failed filmmaker who had coined the term "urban Naxals."
"Haste rahiye... aapka bhi number aayega," another user warned. Yet another tweet by one Mihir Sharma says: "For decades, Dalits have celebrated Bhima-Koregaon without being attacked by Hindutva ‘vadis’. This year, that changed. Now, instead of arresting instigators of violence like Bhide, the BJP has ordered cops to go after Dalit activists, their lawyers and members of PUCL and dub them as dangerous Naxalites. Brazen."
Another tweet by Neeta Kolhatkar reads: "From raids to arrest, none of those so-called urban Naxalites had a role in Bhima-Koregaon. There are 2 men out on bail -- Manohar Bhide and Milind Ekbote. Why are they free? Why raid Anand Teltumbde's house? He was critical of the bandh."
There were, however, persons like Shehzad Jai Hind on Twitter who tried to coax the Pune police into not sparing anyone suspected to be behind the plot to eliminate Prime Minister Modi.
Citing a report on Times Now TV channel, he also claimed how former union minister Jairam Ramesh wrote a letter asking the Maharashtra police to halt the probe into the Maoist plot to kill Narendra Modi. One Priti Gandhi, who hailed the pan-India crackdown, held Urban Naxals responsible for the dangerous BhimaKoregaon violence. ‘‘Raids & arrests had followed after ample evidence. CM Fadnavis taking the bull by the horns," she tweeted.