The police action on activists and intellectuals seemed to have taken the entire intellectual circle by shock. So much so that the top intellectuals in the country voiced their protest in unison and demanded stern action Maharashtra Police for acting on behalf of the government without much water in the theory.
According to them, the ‘vicious and malafide attack’ on the human right activists and want to them to end this political acts of vendetta.
On Tuesday, when a nationwide manhunt arrested five activists who questioned the government on several issues is snowballing into a controversy that may put the current regime under Narendra Modi in a spot of bother just eight months ahead of India’s general election 2019.
Two days after the crackdown and a day after the Supreme Court gave orders not to arrest them on frivolous charges, top intellectuals including renowned author Arundhati Roy, legal eagle Prashant Bhushan, activists Aruna Roy and Jignesh Mevani joined hands to sign a statement in favour of the victims. Their statement pointed out the mockery of legal system by the dispensation. The apex court on Wednesday ordered the police to keep all five arrested ones under house arrest.
Also, the intellectuals demanded that the cops should return the laptops and cell phones which were confiscated during the “illegal arrests”. “They want to divert attention from real issue and discredit the dalit movement. The so-called Maoist plot to kill the Prime Minister is an effort to garner sympathy. Dalits will hold protest rallies at various places on September 5 against the government,” Mevani was quoted as saying Deccan Chronicle on Thursday.
“What is happening today is more dangerous than the Emergency,” Bhushan added while holding a press conference.
It may be recalled that Maharashtra police took in custody Varavara Rao, Gautam Navlakha, Arun Ferreira, Sudha Bharadwaj and Vernon Gonsalves after raiding the houses of several others as part of its investigation into the ‘Elgar Parishad’ conclave in Bhima-Koregaon village near Pune that took place on December 31 last year.
Father Stan Swamy, Susan Abraham, Kranthi Tekula and Anand Teltumbde are apparently others whose homes were also searched earlier this week.