Asha – free them all

NIA seeks documents from Mumbai Press Club after gathering attended by Bhima Koregaon accused

02/05/2026 Asha

NIA seeks documents from Mumbai Press Club after gathering attended by Bhima Koregaon accused

02/05/2026

Scroll.in / by Scroll Staff

The club claimed that the social gathering raised questions about a possible violation of the bail conditions of the persons accused in the case.
The National Investigation Agency on Friday sought documents from the Mumbai Press Club related to a social gathering that was attended by some of the persons accused in the 2018 Bhima Koregaon case who are out on bail, the Mumbai Press Club said in a statement emailed to members.
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NIA visits Mumbai Press Club after it suspends three members over Bhima Koregaon accused gathering

02/05/2026

The Indian Express / by Vallabh Ozarkar

The agency sought documents related to a January event attended by Bhima Koregaon accused out on bail, after the club suspended three members for allegedly facilitating it, a charge they deny, with former president Gurbir Singh calling it politically motivated ahead of club elections.
Two days after the Mumbai Press Club suspended three members over an event attended by accused persons out on bail in the Bhima Koregaon case, officials of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) visited the club seeking documents related to the gathering, according to a statement issued by the club Friday.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Artists, Educators, Publishers Speak Out Against ‘Rising Attempts’ to Stifle Their Voices (The Wire / Mar 2026)
▪ Mumbai Press Club Bars Elgar Parishad Defendants’ Entry, Issues Show-Cause Notice to Member (The Wire / Mar 2026)
▪ SNDT University cancels lecture by feminist historian Uma Chakravarti (Scroll.in / März 2026)
▪ ‘Controversy best avoided’: Kala Ghoda festival director after Anand Teltumbde book event cancelled (Scroll.in / Feb 2026)
▪ Stan Swamy Lecture Cancelled – A Case Study in India’s Shrinking Space for Dissent (The Print / Aug 2025)

In India, trial happens by extended detention

26/04/2026 Asha

Credits: Drawing by Arun Ferreira / The Polis Project

The Tribune / by Hammad Safraz

Those who question the government’s policies on rights and freedoms, find themselves in an endless chase for justice
The world’s largest democracy, or so the slogan goes, has perfected a quiet kind of cruelty against those who speak truth to power. For activists and journalists who question Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, the punishment is arbitrary detention without trial, stretched endlessly into a legal void where no charge is filed and no freedom is granted. …
The first big case, Ria Chakrabarty said, was actually that of anti-caste and tribal activists who rallied at Bhima Koregaon in Maharashtra and were later attacked by Hindu nationalist mobs. … Both the Supreme Court and the UN have judged that many of the detainees were held with no evidence of terrorism. “But this case is important to understand,” she said, “because then the Indian Home Ministry started using the same playbook against Muslim activists who would lead protests subjected to Hindu nationalist violence, and later, primarily Sikh farmers protesting farm laws.”
Read more

Also read:
▪ IAPL demands release of advocate Surendra Gadling from Maharashtra jail (The Sisat Daily / March 2026)
▪ Incarceration As Politics: A Timeline Of Political Prisoners In Independent India (Outlook / Jan 2026)
▪ Justice On Hold: How India’s Trial Courts Are Creating a New Class of Political Prisoners—Those Accused Of ‘Terrorism’ (article 14 / Dec 2025)
▪ Bail for Bhima Koregaon accused highlights extraordinary delay in trial (Scroll.in / Jan 2025)
▪ How Long is Too Long? – On the Maximum Period that an Undertrial Prisoner can be Detained (Constitutional Law and Philosophy | by Hany Babu and Surendra Gadling | Oct 2024)

Remembering Stan Swamy: Justice, Adivasi Rights, and the Politics of Criminalisation

26/04/2026 Asha

pachaiyammal / @Shravs_Dalit (Apr 26):
Remembering Father Stan Swamy on his Birth Anniversary

Remembering Stan Swamy: Justice, Adivasi Rights, and the Politics of Criminalisation

27/04/2026

Countercurrents.org / by Dr Suresh Khairnar

The special constitutional protections granted to Adivasis under the Fifth and Sixth Schedules are steadily being eroded. The death of Stan Swamy stands as a stark reminder of this trajectory, raising serious concerns about the treatment of those who defend these rights.
In the Bhima Koregaon case, in which the NIA arrested him in October 2020, Stan Swamy had never visited Bhima Koregaon. There is no credible basis for linking him to the Elgaar Parishad. The Parishad itself was a coalition of more than 200 social organisations from Maharashtra, formed solely to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Bhima Koregaon Victory Day on 1 January 2018. I was personally associated with it as president of the Rashtra Seva Dal.
Read more

Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha / @JharkhandJanad1 (Apr 25):
Today Mahasabha and Bagaicha, as part of two day Stan Swamy anniversary, organised discussions with activists and political reps and a press con on SIR and the worsening of electoral systems. @parakala was the main speaker. We also released a pamphlet for mass dissemination.

#AdivasiLivesMatter @AdivasisMatter (Apr 26):
Remembering Stan Swamy voice for Adivasis, justice & jal jangal zameen. Johar.
#StanSwamy #TribalRight

Also read:
▪ Jharkhand Special Intensive Revision: Economist Warns of ‘Bloodless Political Genocide Amidst Transparency Converns (Times of India / Apr 2026)
▪ Father Stan Swamy died of natural causes, Maharashtra government tells court (India Today / Oct 2025)
▪ NIA opposes plea to clear Stan Swamy’s name, says it would set wrong precedent (India Today / Sep 2025)
▪ I saw firsthand how callous prison officials and their negligence led to Stan Swamy’s death (Scroll.in | by Arun Ferreira | Jul 2025)
▪ Jharkhand police to probe into Maoist links with Stan Swamy’s ‘Bagaicha’, 63 other frontal organisations (The New Indian Express / Sep 2023)
▪ Hackers Planted Files to Frame an Indian Priest Who Died in Custody (Wired / Dec 2022)
▪ How the system broke Stan Swamy: A cell mate recalls the activist’s last days in prison (Scroll.in | by Arun Ferreira | Aug 2021)
▪ Rashtra Seva Dal’s Inquiry Report into Bhima-Koregaon Riots (SACW/Jan 2018)

▪ I am not a Silent Spectator – Why Truth has become so bitter, Dissent so intolarable, Justice so out of reach – An Autobiographical Fragment, Memory and Reflection (Indian Social Institute / Aug 2021)

Edition: Aug 2021
Publisher: Indian Social Institute, Bangalore
Language: English
Paperback: 149 pages

‘Why truth has become so bitter, dissent so intolerable, justice so out of reach?’ because truth has become very bitter to those in power and position, dissent, so unpalatable to the ruling elite, justice, so out of reach to the powerless, marginalised, deprived people. Yet, truth must be spoken, right to dissent must be upheld, and justice must reach the doorsteps of the poor. I am not a silent spectator. This booklet is not my autobiography. It is rather a collation of some glimpses/episodes from my life that somehow made a difference for me, and possibly for my confrères, colleagues and the people with whom I have shared my life.

Access a free PDF copy of the book here

OIAD: Surendra Gadling kept in prolonged detention for 8 years

22/04/2026 Asha

Protect-lawyers.org / by Observatoire International des Avocats en Danger (OIAD)

Mr Surendra Gadling is a lawyer specialising in the defence of human rights and marginalised communities, particularly Dalits and indigenous peoples in India. He has been held in detention for nearly eight years in connection with the Bhima Koregaon case. He is now the only defendant still in prison – the other fifteen people prosecuted in this case have been released on bail.
Gadling was arrested in 2018 and is one of a group of human rights defenders prosecuted for their alleged involvement in violence that occurred in Bhima Koregaon. Several organisations believe that these prosecutions are in fact targeting committed activists and denounce the charges as baseless.
Mr Gadling is also being prosecuted in another case linked to a fire at a mining site in Surajgarh. According to several lawyers, inconsistencies have been identified in the complaint (including the absence of evidence linking him directly to the incident).
Read full statement

Also read:
▪ 7 yrs in jail, charges framed against Surendra Gadling in Surajgarh arson case. What Bombay HC told SC (The Print / Apr 2026)
▪ IAPL demands release of advocate Surendra Gadling from Maharashtra jail (The Sisat Daily / March 2026)
▪ Public Meeting at Press Club of India Demands Release of People’s Lawyer Surendra Gadling (The Mooknayak / March 2026)
▪ IAPL press note about arrest of Advocate Gadling & other people’s activists (Sanhati / June 2018)
▪ Encountering Resistance – State Policy for Development in Gadchiroli (PUDR / June 2018)

The End of Naxalism, the End of Accountability

22/04/2026 Asha

The Wire / by Nandini Sundar

As the government claims victory over the CPI (Maoist), a more consequential defeat is being obscured: the collapse of constitutional accountability and the normalisation of impunity.
…
Among the many ironies of this confused and legally directionless ‘end of Naxalism’, is the fate of those arrested on charges of being Maoist sympathisers. At one end, we have the human rights lawyer Surendra Gadling who has been in jail since 2018, along with the rest of the BK 16 who are out on bail but still suffer from a protracted trial despite ample proof that police ‘evidence’ was fabricated. At the other end, the youth leaders of the Moolvasi Bachao Manch in Bastar, like Raghu Midiyami, Suneeta Pottam and others, have been jailed for over two years under UAPA, along with some other 40 activists at different times. Even simple rights like an operation to fix Raghu Midiyami’s broken finger are being resisted by the NIA. The MBM waged an entirely constitutional struggle, invoking the 5th Schedule of the Constitution and PESA to defend their lands. Evidently a peaceful movement of locals, in the face of an intensified mining push, is now a greater threat to the national security state than even the Maoists.
Hundreds of other innocent Adivasis continue to languish in jail, going through the tortuous legal system. Stan Swamy was targeted because his PIL in the Jharkhand High Court, based on interviews with 102 undertrials, showed that 97% of those arrested on charges of being Maoist actually had no relation to them.
Read more

Also read:
▪ 7 yrs in jail, charges framed against Surendra Gadling in Surajgarh arson case. What Bombay HC told SC (The Print / Apr 2026)
▪ Voices From Prison | Half-Freedom For Adivasis Jailed On Maoist Allegations (Outlook / Jan 2026)
▪ Voices From Prison | From Forest To Prison, When Security Laws Criminalise Adivasi Resistance (Outlook / Jan 2026)
▪ Will anti-Naxal drive pave way for mining giants? (The New Indian Express / May 2025)
▪ Top intellectual targeted for role as anti-displacement activist, opponent of ‘corporate loot’ (Sep 2024)
▪ Who Is Suneeta Pottam, the Tribal Rights Activist Picked up for Unknown Cases Earlier This Month? (The Wire / Jun 2024)
▪ Encountering Resistance – State Policy for Development in Gadchiroli (PUDR / June 2018)
▪ Condemn the State Sponsored Massacre Scripted as ‘Encounter’ in Gadchiroli and Bijapur in Central India (wssnet.wordpress.com / May 2018)
▪ A study of Undertrials in Jharkhand (Sanhati / by Bagaicha Research Team / Feb 2016)

How Maharashtra’s folk traditions fuel Sudhir Dhawale’s tireless cultural resistance against caste

14/04/2026 Asha

Pic credits: Tabassum Barnagarwala/Scroll

Scroll.in / by Freny Manecksha

For the Marathi poet-activist, song and verse are tools of social change, like they have been for Phule’s Satyashodhak Samaj and the Ambedkarite movement.
When Sudhir Dhawale was growing up in Nagpur’s Dalit-dominated Indora area in the 1970s, a calendar depicting a child with a pistol hung on the wall of his family’s rented home. It bore a slogan declaring that rights are not handed out – one has to fight to seize them.
“It was just a poster but it brought the understanding through cultural means that we needed to agitate,” said the 57-year-old Marathi poet, activist and co-founder of the Republican Panthers Caste Annihilation Movement. “We could not hope our rights would automatically flow.”
Read more

Also read:
▪ Taloja Jail: Lives Fading in Silence Behind Iron Walls (Outlook | Sudhir Dhawale | Sep 2025)
▪ Sudhir Dhawale: “This is a bigger prison” (The Caravan | by Sudhir Dhawale | Apr 2025)
▪ BK-16 Prison Diaries: Sudhir Dhawale’s poem, “Prisoners of Consciousness” (The Polis Project / March 2025)
▪ Interview | Sudhir Dhawale’s Work Will Go on (The Wire / Feb 2025)
▪ Sudhir Dhawale interview: ‘The law remains blind to injustice even with the blindfold gone’ (Scroll.in / Feb 2025)
▪ Rona Wilson and Sudhir Dhawale released: Seven years of injustice by a state that punishes dissent [read order] (Sabrangindia / Jan 2025)
▪ Singing on the beats of resistance: Relaa collective and the cultural activists of Maharashtra (ritimo.org / Apr 2022)

Convention in Ludhiana raises concerns over detentions, rights issues

10/04/2026 Asha

Countercurrents / by Harsh Thakor

A convention organised by the Democratic Front Against Green Hunt, Punjab, was held to mark April 8 as a day opposing what participants described as “draconian laws” and to commemorate the legacy of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru. …
Resolutions presented by Jaswinder Phagwara were adopted at the convention. … Additional demands included the release of activists and intellectuals in cases such as Bhima Koregaon, the Lucknow conspiracy case and the Delhi violence cases, the release of undertrials and convicts who have completed their sentences, protection of the right to organise and protest, and an end to alleged fake police encounters in Punjab.
Read more

Also read:
▪ 7 yrs in jail, charges framed against Surendra Gadling in Surajgarh arson case. What Bombay HC told SC (The Print / Apr 2026)
▪ Artists, Educators, Publishers Speak Out Against ‘Rising Attempts’ to Stifle Their Voices (The Wire / March 2026)
▪ Voices From Prison | A Legacy Of Detention: Weaponisation Of PDA, TADA, NSA And UAPA Laws Since Independence (Outlook / Jan 2026)
▪ ‘Provincial Convention against Repression’ in Barnala, Punjab (Countercurrents / Jan 2025)

Case overload? 71% of NIA investigations rely on anti-terror law UAPA

10/04/2026 Asha

Business Standard / by Jayant Pankaj

As the agency faces a mounting judicial bottleneck, its heavy reliance on the controversial law is fuelling concerns
When P Chidambaram was India’s Home Minister, he met with Robert Mueller, director of America’s Federal Bureau of Investigation, in March 2009 in New Delhi. It was three months after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, and Chidambaram described the newly formed National Investigation Agency (NIA) as crucial to the country’s security.
…
In the headline-making Bhima Koregaon case, the NIA charged 16 people in January 2020 with participating in anti-national activities as defined by various UAPA sections. According to the latest data on the NIA’s official website, the case remains “under investigation”.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Unlawful: Editorial on the Bhima Koregaon case and denial of liberty under UAPA (The Telegraph / Feb 2026)
▪ Inside the NIA’s ‘Perfect’ Conviction Record: How Coercive Detentions Are Driving Guilty Pleas (The Wire / Dec 2025)
▪ Justice On Hold: How India’s Trial Courts Are Creating a New Class of Political Prisoners—Those Accused Of ‘Terrorism’ (article 14 / Dec 2025)
▪ UAPA – CRIMINALISING DISSENT AND STATE TERROR – Study of UAPA Abuse in India, 2009-2022 (PUCL / Sep 2022). Download report

The death of the 84-year-old Catholic priest, Stan Swamy, marked the end of India’s secularism

08/04/2026 Asha

Christian Post / by Azeem Ibrahim

On July 5, 2021, Father Stanislaus Lourduswamy — an 83-year-old Jesuit priest and tribal rights activist — died in pre-trial custody in Mumbai, India.
Frail from Parkinson’s disease and a COVID-19 infection, he had spent nine months behind bars under India’s anti-terror laws, denied bail despite his deteriorating health. His alleged crime was implausible: authorities accused him of sedition and links to Maoist insurgents — charges widely derided as baseless. To many, his imprisonment and death became a symbol of a constitutional democracy being quietly hollowed out.
Read more

Also read:
▪ The Siege of Faith: A year-long analysis of the persecution and otherisation of Christians in India (SabrangIndia / March 2026)
▪ Conversion laws and national identity: A Jesuit response response to the Hindutva narrative (Countercurrents / Feb 2026)
▪ Report 2025: Hate Speech Events in India (Center for the Study of Organized Hate / Jan 2026)
▪ Indian Jesuits to continue fight to clear Father Stan Swamy’s name (UCA News / Dec 2025)
▪ INDIA | USCIRF–RECOMMENDED FOR COUNTRIES OF PARTICULAR CONCERN (United States Commission on International Religious Freedom / 2025)
▪ Father Stan Swamy died of natural causes, Maharashtra government tells court (India Today / Oct 2025)
▪ Modi government’s actions against the Christian minority reveal a deep malaise within our society (Scroll.in / Mar 2022)

Prashant Bose died in custody – was linked to an alleged ‘communication’ in the Bhima Koregaon case

04/04/2026 Asha

Prashant Bose. Pic credits: Countercurrents.org

Top Maoist dies in Ranchi, was linked to ‘plot to kill PM Modi’ in Pune case

04/04/2026

The Indian Express / by Chandan Haygunde

Bose was one of the many accused named in the Elgaar Parishad- Koregaon Bhima case by the Pune city police in 2018. He was named in connection with an alleged “Maoist communication” that mentioned a plot to kill Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
A top Maoist leader Prashant Bose alias Kishan Da, aged around 80 years, died at the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) in Ranchi on Friday. A native of West Bengal, Bose was arrested along with his wife Sheela Marandi in November 2021, and has been behind bars since then.
Read more

CASR strongly condemns the custodial murder of political prisoner Prashant Bose

04/04/2026

Countercurrents.org / by Campaign Against State Repression

The Campaign Against State Repression (CASR) strongly condemns the custodial death of octogenarian political prisoner Prashant Bose, who passed away on 3rd April at RIMS Hospital, Ranchi, Jharkhand.
…
CASR demands:
▪ A high-level, independent judicial inquiry into the custodial death of Prashant Bose.
▪ Immediate and adequate medical treatment for all prisoners across jails.
▪ Urgent release of all prisoners suffering from severe and life-threatening medical conditions.
Read full statement

Also read:
▪ I saw firsthand how callous prison officials and their negligence led to Stan Swamy’s death (Scroll.in | by Arun Ferreira | Jul 2025)
▪ Was the trial judge who convicted G.N. Saibaba biased? We will never know, and that is part of the injustice (The Leaflet / March 2024)
▪ Elgar Parishad Case: CPI (Maoist) Leader Arrested in Jharkhand (The Wire / Nov 2021)
▪ The unravelling of a conspiracy: were the 16 charged with plotting to kill India’s prime minister framed? (The Guardian / Aug 2021)
▪ They were accused of plotting to overthrow the Modi government. The evidence was planted, a new report says. (Washington Post / Feb 2021)