Arrests of Indian rights activists spark outrage

NEW DELHI: Indian police arrested five outspoken lawyers and left-wing activists during raids across the country Tuesday that drew condemnation from opposition parties and rights watchdogs who said it was a crackdown on government critics.

Police said the five had been detained for their links to Maoist militants, but Rahul Gandhi, head of the main opposition Congress party, said the government just wanted to “jail all activists”.

Rights groups and media reports named the five as poet and activist Varavara Rao, human rights lawyer Vernon Gonsalves, writer and lawyer Arun Ferreira, journalist and activist Gautam Navlakha, and trade unionist Sudha Bharadwaj.

Police did not name the five but the joint commissioner of police in the western city of Pune, Shivaji Bodakhe, said: “These persons have been arrested for their Maoist links.”

The homes of other activists and lawyers were raided as part of the investigation, media reports said. Five others were detained in June. Police have been investigating violence between Dalits and upper-caste groups following a political meeting near Pune on Dec 31 last year.

The Press Trust of India news agency quoted police as saying the five detained on Tuesday had links to the meeting.

It also quoted security officials as saying that “two letters, purportedly exchanged by Maoist leaders indicating plans to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah and home minister Rajnath Singh, led to police action”.

Booker-prize winning author Arundhati Roy, a critic of Modi, said the arrests were an attempt to muzzle freedoms ahead of next year’s polls.

The Indian sections of Amnesty International and Oxfam released a joint statement calling the sweep “disturbing” and questioning whether the five had been detained for their rights work. – AFP