Indian activists decry police arrests and searches

NEW DELHI – Police in India arrested prominent activists and writers and searched their homes Tuesday, alleging that they had incited a riot. Critics called the actions another blow to the right to dissent in the world’s most populous democracy.

The latest raids came months after clashes at Bhima-koregaon in western India – where high-caste Hindus attacked an annual celebration by people of a lower caste.

Police told local media that those arrested had spoken at or participated in an event that fomented clashes between the two groups.

On Tuesday, police seized electronics, including phones and cameras, from activists and authors, saying in search warrants that they had “promoted enmity” and incited a mob of low-caste rioters in January.

Stan Swamy, an octogenarian Jesuit priest, said police took his phone, computer, camera and audiocassettes and CDS of classical instrumental music.

Swamy laughed off the charges. He is accused of being involved in a criminal conspiracy in Pune, a city in western India nearly 1,000 miles from his hometown of Ranchi in eastern India, which he said he has not left for two years because of old age.

The Bharatiya Janata Party “government is oppressing any voice that opposes it,” he said. “The right to dissent, a constitutional right, is being denied.”

Suppression of dissent is increasingly common in India, with recent instances of censorship and intimidation of journalists.

According to news reports, the incident at Bhima-koregaon started with high-caste men carrying saffron flags attacking a procession of low-caste people, called Dalits, during a celebration on Jan. 1, a day that marks the defeat of high-caste Maratha rulers in a historic battle in 1818, a first step in the Dalits’ struggle for freedom from the caste system.