Asha – free them all

Supreme Court To Hear Surendra Gadling’s Bail Plea On November 4

15/10/2026 Asha

Surjagarh Arson Case: Supreme Court To Hear UAPA Accused Surendra Gadling’s Bail Plea On November 4

15/10/2026

Law Beat / by Sukriti Mishra

Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal on October 15, 2026 mentioned Surendra Gadling’s bail plea before a Supreme Court Bench including Justice Vikram Nath, which listed the matter for hearing on November 4
The Supreme Court on Thursday fixed Surendra Gadling’s plea for bail for hearing on November 4, after Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal urged the Court to fix a date, telling the Court that Gadling “has been inside for 7 years” and that the matter “is not being heard”.
Gadling’s plea was listed before a Bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta.
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Supreme Court Lists Surendra Gadling’s Bail Plea In Surjagarh Arson Case For November 4

15/10/2026

LawChakra / by LawChakra Desk

Years in custody and a plea that never seemed to reach the head of the cause list: the Supreme Court has now fixed November 4 to hear Surendra Gadling’s bail plea in the 2016 Surjagarh mine arson case, after Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal mentioned it.
Activist-lawyer Surendra Gadling, who remains in custody in the 2016 Surjagarh mine arson case in Gadchiroli, Maharashtra, will have his bail plea heard on November 4, the Supreme Court decided on Thursday, although he has already secured bail in the Bhima Koregaon case [Surendra Pundalik Gadling v. State of Maharashtra].
Read more

Also read:
▪ Supreme Court to hear bail plea of Bhima Koregaon accused Surendra Gadling on October 14 (The Hindu / Sep 2026)
▪ 3rd SC judge recuses himself from hearing lawyer Surendra Gadling’s bail plea (Hindustan Times / Jul 2026)
▪ Eight years in jail without trial: HC grants bail to lawyer Surendra Gadling in Elgar Parishad case (Hindustan Times / May 2026)
▪ 7 yrs in jail, charges framed against Surendra Gadling in Surajgarh arson case. What Bombay HC told SC (The Print / Apr 2026)
▪ Public Meeting at Press Club of India Demands Release of People’s Lawyer Surendra Gadling (The Mooknayak / March 2026)
▪ Surendra Gadling and the justice that must be seen to be denied (Frontline / Feb 2026)
▪ Explained: The 2016 Surjagarh arson case, the Elgaar link, and why the Supreme Court is intervening now (The Indian Express / Jan 2026)
▪ Surendra Gadling’s Computer Was Attacked, Incriminating Documents Planted: Arsenal Consulting (The Wire / July 2021)
▪ Encountering Resistance – State Policy for Development in Gadchiroli (PUDR / June 2018)
▪ DISINHERITING ADIVASIS – THE GADCHIROLI GAME PLAN (KAFILA / June 2018)

Why UAPA demands urgent reform

12/10/2026 Asha

The Hindu / by Gautam Bhatia

UAPA’s vague provisions, stringent bail conditions and inconsistent judicial interpretations have enabled the prolonged imprisonment of activists, scholars and journalists without trial; Prof. G.N. Saibaba’s experience shows the urgent need to reform a legal regime that undermines civil liberties, due process and rule of law
… The anniversary of Professor Saibaba’s death is an occasion to reflect on a legal regime that is designed to — quite literally — imprison dissent and deny justice. Over the years, the UAPA has been used to criminalise political opposition. Following the violence at the Bhima Koregaon commemoration event in 2018, UAPA charges were brought against 16 scholars and activists, all of whom were jailed. Eight years later, the trial has yet to begin, and the court has yet to frame charges against the accused.
Read more

Also read:
▪ The GN Saibaba Case: The Legacy of a Belated Acquittal (The Wire / Oct 2026)
▪ Voices From Prison | A Legacy Of Detention: Weaponisation Of PDA, TADA, NSA And UAPA Laws Since Independence (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)
▪ G.N. Saibaba’s Lifelong Campaign Was Against the Violence of Silencing (The Wire | by Rona Wilson | Oct 2024)
▪ UAPA – CRIMINALISING DISSENT AND STATE TERROR – Study of UAPA Abuse in India, 2009-2022 (PUCL / Sep 2022). Download report

Modi opens war on the people, and the Supreme Court looks on

10/10/2026 Asha

Bengaluru Lawyers Protest Delhi Arrests, Demand CEC Gyanesh Kumar’s Removal

13/12/2026

ETV Bharat / by ETV Bharat English Team

They voiced their concerns over alleged voter deletions, police action against dissenters and the independence of constitutional institutions, seeking the intervention of the Supreme Court.
… Advocate and legal activist Narasimhamurthy condemned alleged police atrocity against lawyers, students and journalists. … He also cited the imprisonment of activists, including GN Saibaba and Father Stan Swamy, and detentions in the Bhima Koregaon case as examples of the treatment of dissenting voices.
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Modi opens war on the people, and the Supreme Court looks on

10/10/2026

Frontline / by Anand Teltumbde

The government has used force to stop protests against Gyanesh Kumar and the SIR. The Supreme Court’s delays and refusal of interim relief have allowed the process to continue, prompting criticism that its caution favors the executive.
On October 10, Delhi was sealed before the protest began. Dozens of Metro stations were closed or restricted, trains cancelled, and mobile internet suspended in central Delhi. Jantar Mantar was ringed with barricades, cameras, water cannons, and security forces; buses waited to carry detainees away. …
In the Bhima-Koregaon case, civil-rights activists, lawyers, and scholars were arrested under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and held for years without trial. During the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), Muslim activists, including Umar Khalid, were prosecuted under the same law. Prolonged detention before trial makes process itself a punishment. It was meant to terrorise people into silence. Women wrestlers who protested alleged sexual abuse by a BJP MP were met with police force rather than an urgent reckoning with their allegations.
Read more

Also read:
▪ PUDR Condemns the Imposition of an ‘Undeclared Emergency’ and the Planned Crackdown on Peaceful Protests in Delhi (PUDR / Oct 2026)
▪ Who Will Police the Indian Police? (The Wire | by Anand Teltumbde | Sep 2026)
▪ In Defence of the Profanity of Protesters (The Wire | by Anand Teltumbde | Jul 2026)
▪ Who Answers to Us?: The Jantar Mantar Protests and India’s Missing Idea of Accountability (The Wire | by Anand Teltumbde | Jul 2026)

Joint Submission to GANHRI Regarding Review of the Accreditation Status of the NHRC of India

09/10/2026 Asha

Front Line Defenders / by Front Line Defenders & others

We, the undersigned, are regional and international human rights nongovernmental organizations as well as individuals expressing concerns over the developments at the National Human Rights Commission of India (NHRCI).
…
Over the past decade, the NHRCI has not intervened when Indian authorities have targeted students, activists, lawyers, journalists, and critics of the government under the abusive, counterterrorism law, the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). This includes 16 prominent activists who promoted the rights of persons from India’s most marginalized communities, accusing them of inciting violence that occurred during a Dalit meeting in January 2018 in Bhima Koregaon in Maharashtra state. The trial is yet to begin but 15 activists arrested in the case spent years in jail before they were granted bail, while 84-year-old Stan Swamy, a prominent tribal rights activist, died in custody, which a UN expert termed as “a stain on India’s human rights record.” According to reports by the US-based forensic firm Arsenal Consulting, malware was used to surveil and plant evidence on the computers of at least three accused in this case.
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‘A National Hero’: Jailed Activist Umar Khalid Wins International Award For Human Rights Defenders

09/10/2026

The Wire / by The Wire Staff

A special ceremony was held at the Trinity College in Dublin, to honour all the recipients. Khalid was represented by his father, Syed Qasim Rasool Ilyas.
Activist Umar Khalid who has been jailed since the last six years has won the 2026 Front Line Defenders Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk.
“Umar Khalid is the 2026 Asia winner of the Front Line Defenders Award. To those who try to silence his work, he is seen as an “enemy of the state’’ and an “anti-national”, but to others, he is a national hero, a voice of the people, and a human rights defender.
Read more

Also read:
▪ India added to human rights watchlist as repression intensifies in Modi’s third term (CIVICUS / Jul 2026)
▪ Civic freedoms remain at risk with crackdown on protests, internet restrictions and denial of bail to activists (CIVICUS / Jan 2026)
▪ Ongoing detention of activists without bail, criminalisation of dissent and ban on books (CIVICUS / Sep S025)
▪ Read India report: INDIA – COUNTRY FACTSHEET 2025 (World Organization Against Torture / Jun 2025)

▪ India: Authorities must immediately repeal repressive new criminal laws (Amnesty International / Jul 2024)
▪ India: Submission to the UN Human Rights Committee on the deterioration of civic space (CIVICUS /Jul 2024)
▪ Why Courts Are Ignoring Concerns Of Planted Evidence In The Bhima-Koregaon Prosecution (article14 / Jan 2023)

‘Maharashtra centre of Maoist urban network’: State defends Special Public Security Act in court

07/10/2026 Asha

‘Maharashtra centre of Maoist urban network’: State defends Special Public Security Act in court

07/10/2026

The Indian Express / by Omkar Gokhale

Defending the law against Congress, CPI and AITUC pleas, the state says other Maoist-hit states already have similar laws that have withstood judicial scrutiny
Maharashtra, “because of its highest urban population has become center of Maoist urban network,” the state government has told the Bombay High Court, defending the Maharashtra Special Public Security (MSPS) Act. … Citing Elgaar Parishad and other cases, the affidavit claimed Maharashtra has the highest number of frontal organisations in the country, 64. It said Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Jharkhand had banned such groups under similar laws that “withstood judicial scrutiny”, so Maharashtra was empowered to enact one for “local security environments”.
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Maharashtra Has Become ‘Centre’ Of Maoist Urban Network: State Defends Special Public Security Act Before Bombay High Court

07/10/2026

Live Law / by Narsi Benwal

The Maharashtra Government while defending its decision to enact the Maharashtra Special Public Security Act (MSPSA), on Tuesday (October 6) told the Bombay High Court that because of its highest urban population, the State has become a ‘centre’ for Maoist urban network and thus in absence of legal framework to ban such ‘left wing extremist’ organisations, it has come up with this law as done by states like Telangana, Andra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Modi’s ‘Dimagi Naxal’ Remark Is an Attempt to Frame the Next Wave of Youth Dissent as Anti-National (The Wire | Anand Teltumbde | Aug 2026)
▪ Insecurity By Law: A Critique of the Maharashtra Special Public Security Bill in the Context of India’s Banning Regime (PUDR / Jul 2025)
▪ McCarthyism in INDIA?: The Return of The Urban Naxal Bogey! (The Crossbill / Jul 2024)
▪ Maharashtra: Top Cop Accuses Decades-Old Cultural, Rights Orgs of Working as ‘Naxal Fronts’ (The Wire / Feb 2022)
▪ Maharashtra: Activists, Lawyers Added to ‘Union War Book’, Listed as ‘Enemies of the State’ (The Wire / Jul 2021)
▪ From ‘tukde tukde gang’ to ‘urban Naxal’: How media trials enable the government to stifle dissent (Scroll.in / Sep 2018)

The prisoner as political category

29/09/2026 Asha

Maktoob / by Mohd Alfaz Ali

To mark Prisoners’ Day honestly is to notice this asymmetry, not just to honor the dead of 1929. It is to ask why a nation can revere its historical political prisoners while refusing that name to those living through an almost identical experience today
On 13th September 1929, Jatin Das died in Lahore Central Jail after sixty-three days without food. He had not committed a violent act. His crime, in the eyes of the colonial state, was conviction, the belief that India should govern itself. His body, wasting through week after week of hunger strike, became the only language of protest still available to a man the state had already decided to silence through confinement rather than trial. His death is why September 13th is observed as Prisoners’ Day.
… Sharjeel Imam has been in Jail without trial since 2020. Umar Khalid’s case has moved at a similar pace. The Bhima Koregaon accused, several of them elderly, some in visibly deteriorating health, have spent years as undertrials on charges that have yet to be substantively tested in court.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Civil Liberties Groups Seek Release of Political Prisoners (Deccan Chronicle / Aug 2026)
▪ Voices From Prison | A Legacy Of Detention: Weaponisation Of PDA, TADA, NSA And UAPA Laws Since Independence (Outlook / Jan 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)
▪ The Grammar of the Power to Arrest and Search under UAPA (Constitutional Law and Philosophy | by Hany Babu and Surendra Gadling | Jul 2025)
▪ Who Is a ‘Political Prisoner’? Rona Wilson Says Caste and Religion Are Key to the Answer (The Wire / Feb 2025)
▪ UAPA – CRIMINALISING DISSENT AND STATE TERROR – Study of UAPA Abuse in India, 2009-2022 (PUCL / Sep 2022). Download report
▪ Punished without trial: How India’s political prisoners are being denied basic rights in jail (Scroll.in / Aug 2022)

31 UAPA cases, years in jail: Inside Maharashtra’s overburdened Maoist belt court

20/09/2026 Asha

The Indian Express / by Sadaf Modak

Set up in 2023 to bring trials closer to remote Maoist affected villages, the court now has 31 pending UAPA cases, most more than five years old; witnesses travel for hours through forested areas while accused are often produced from distant jails through videoconferencing
… The need for a dedicated court had also come into focus before the Supreme Court earlier this year during the bail proceedings of lawyer Surendra Gadling, who has represented several UAPA accused and was arrested in the 2018 Elgaar Parishad case. Gadling had told the Supreme Court that his 2016 Surjagarh arson case remained pending without a court or prosecutor in Aheri.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Supreme Court to hear bail plea of Bhima Koregaon accused Surendra Gadling on October 14 (The Hindu / Sep 2026)
▪ 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 | A Legacy Of Detention: Weaponisation Of PDA, TADA, NSA And UAPA Laws Since Independence (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)
▪ UAPA – CRIMINALISING DISSENT AND STATE TERROR – Study of UAPA Abuse in India, 2009-2022 (PUCL / Sep 2022). Download report
▪ Encountering Resistance – State Policy for Development in Gadchiroli (PUDR / June 2018)
▪ DISINHERITING ADIVASIS – THE GADCHIROLI GAME PLAN (KAFILA / June 2018)

Commission probing Koregaon Bhima violence concludes hearings after 8 years

18/09/2026 Asha

Booklet: “Salaakhon Mein Qaid Avaazein” (Access PDF)

Commission probing Koregaon Bhima violence concludes hearings after 8 years

18/09/2026

The Indian Express / by Chandan Haygunde

V V Palnitkar, the Commission’s secretary, told The Indian Express on Friday, “The government has given an extension to the Commission of two more months to complete its work.
Nearly eight and a half years after the Koregaon Bhima Commission of Inquiry was formed by the Maharashtra government to probe the causes for violence in Pune’s Koregaon Bhima area on January 1, 2018, the panel has concluded its hearings to record evidence.
The Commission has received yet another extension till October 31, 2026, to submit its final report to the state government.
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Koregaon Bhima Commission’s Long Delay Tests Maharashtra’s Accountability

19/09/2026

Urban Acres / by Urban Acres

The Koregaon Bhima Commission of Inquiry has concluded recording witness evidence nearly eight and a half years after violence broke out in Pune district on January 1, 2018.
…
The two broad positions before the commission show why the evidence has been difficult to consolidate. One side blamed Hindutva leaders Milind Ekbote and Sambhaji Bhide. The other alleged that organisers of the Elgaar Parishad, held at Pune’s Shaniwar Wada on December 31, 2017, had played a role in instigating the violence. These are competing claims recorded in the inquiry and should not be treated as findings. The commission’s final report will determine how the evidence is assessed.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Why caste Hindutva, not an Elgar conspiracy, is at the root of the Bhima Koregaon violence (The Polis Project / Feb 2025)
▪ Book Excerpt | How Bhima Koregaon Became a Trope for Dalit Pride and Assertion (The Wire / June 2024)
▪ Top Investigating Officer Admits Elgar Parishad Event ‘Had No Role’ in Bhima Koregaon Violence (The Wire / Dec 2022)
▪ Hindutva leader Sambhaji Bhide’s name dropped from Bhima Koregaon case, say police (Scroll.in / May 2022)
▪ India’s Hindu Nationalist Project Relies on Brutal Repression (Jacobinmag / April 2021)
▪ Casting a Veil – What we miss by ignoring Maratha caste politics in the Bhima Koregaon case (The Caravan, Dec 2020)
▪ Why peoples’ coalitions are uniting against Hindutva — the ‘new Peshwai’ (Dailyo.in │ by Arun Ferreira and Vernon Gonsalves │ Jan 2018)
▪ The Myth of Bhima Koregaon Reinforces the Identities It Seeks to Transcend (The Wire | Anand Teltumbde | Jan 2018)
▪ Saffron Conspiracy in Bhima Koregaon? – Fact finding report by Rashtra Seva Dal unearths insidious scheme to target Dalits (CJP / Jan 2018)

Varavara Rao’s memorial tribute to Bhumaiah and Kishta Goud

15/09/2026 Asha

Do You Know Bhumaiah and Kishta Goud?

14/09/2026

Countercurrents / by Manish Azad

The much-acclaimed documentary film Prisoners of Conscience, made by Anand Patwardhan in 1978, also mentions the two Adivasi revolutionaries, Bhumaiah and Kishta Goud, who were hanged on 1 December 1975 during the Emergency.
… At the time when Bhumaiah and Kishta Goud were being held in Mushirabad Jail [Secunderabad] awaiting execution, revolutionary poet Varavara Rao was also imprisoned in the same jail under the notorious MISA [Maintenance of Internal Security Act] along with other comrades of Virasam [Revolutionary Writers’ Association]. When he learned that Bhumaiah and Kishta Goud were waiting for death in the gallows located on the other side of the prison kitchen, he became desperate to meet them. He requested the jailer, who eventually allowed him to meet them for a short while.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Let us abolish this executioner’s system: Varavara Rao makes the case as only he can (South First / Aug 2026)
▪ Court Rejects NIA’s Plea to Put Elgar Parishad Accused Back in Jail (The Wire / Aug 2026)
▪ Charge of Maoist link in Press Club meet ‘mere assumption’ – Varavara Rao opposes NIA bail repeal plea (The Print / Jul 2026)
▪ Bombay High Court seeks NIA’s reply to Varavara Rao’s plea to permanently reside in Hyderabad (The Indian Express / Jun 2026)
▪ Captive Imagination – Letters From Prison

Author: Varavara Rao
Publishing Date: 2010
Publisher: Penguin Books India
Pages: 208

Poet, Marxist critic and activist, Varavara Rao (VV) has been continually persecuted by the state and intermittently imprisoned since 1973, but he never stopped writing during all these decades, even from within prison. When he was subjected to ‘one thousand days of solitary confinement’ during 1985-89 in Secunderabad Jail, a leading national daily invited him to write about his prison experiences.

A republic’s travesty of justice / The true meaning of freedom

13/09/2026 Asha

A republic’s travesty of justice

17/09/2026

Frontline / by M.A. Baby

Umar Khalid’s six years in Tihar expose how prolonged pretrial detention under UAPA has become a means of punishing dissent, with Muslims, Dalits and Adivasis bearing a disproportionate burden.
On September 13, 2026, Umar Khalid completed six years in Tihar Jail. Not one prosecution witness has been examined.
There is a particular kind of silence that settles over a case like Umar’s. This is the silence of a system that has learned to punish without verdict, to sentence without trial, and most importantly, to convert the process itself into the penalty.
… The Bhima-Koregaon case offers a parallel indictment of the same machinery. It has been eight years since the alleged incident. Even the trial has not begun.
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Who Will Police the Indian Police?

13/09/2026

The Wire / by Anand Teltumbde

Police reform will remain cosmetic unless policing is made strictly accountable to the law rather than to political power.
Police are the face of the state to ordinary Indians. And that face is often one of raw terror. People encounter the state through the policeman at the street corner, the police station, the barricade or the interrogation room. As veteran journalist Kuldip Nayar once observed, the ordinary person’s first encounter with the police often begins with abuse and the danda.
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Serving the Powerful, Failing the Powerless

13/09/2026

Peoples Democracy / by MA Baby

Justice Deepak Gupta, a former judge of the Supreme Court, marked the eightieth anniversary of Independence by asking in print what few in his position have dared to ask; how free are we, the citizens of India?
… The Bhima Koregaon prosecution is in its ninth year. Father Stan Swamy died in custody in July 2021. Surendra Gadling got bail in May 2026 after nearly eight years, only to stay in jail on a second case. Every surviving accused has now been granted bail; not one has faced trial, because charges have still not been framed, and forensic findings that the incriminating files were planted by malware have never been judicially examined. The process is the punishment, and the court’s refusal to intervene is what keeps the process alive.
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“The process has become the punishment”: Former SC judge Justice Deepak Gupta flags Umar Khalid’s incarceration, judicial majoritarianis

11/09/2026

Maktoob / by Maktoob

Former Supreme Court judge Justice Deepak Gupta criticised prolonged incarceration, judicial majoritarianism and courts’ failure to protect individual liberty, saying “the process has become the punishment” while citing the cases of Umar Khalid, Elgar Parishad and Sonam Wangchuk.
Former Supreme Court judge Justice Deepak Gupta criticised the judiciary’s failure to protect individual liberty, citing rights activist Umar Khalid’s prolonged incarceration and the Elgar Parishad case, and said “the process has become the punishment” as people are labelled “anti-nationals” and their lives ruined.
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The true meaning of freedom

06/09/2026

The Tribune / by Justice Deepak Gupta

No country can claim to be free unless it has an independent and fearless judiciary
After the marching has come to a halt, the drumrolls have fallen silent and the euphoria of India’s 80th Independence Day celebrations has lessened, I ponder, how free are we, the citizens of India?
… The accused in the Elgar Parishad case were kept behind bars for years; one died in jail. The allegations against them are said to be very serious. If so, why has the prosecution not shown the same seriousness to start the trial? Eight years have passed since the incident took place. The trial is yet to begin.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Our Criminal Justice System Overlooks Victims of Police Torture (The Wire / Jun 2026)
▪ The ‘Natural Death’ Problem in Indian Jails (The Wire / Jun 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)
▪ In Surendra Gadling’s case, adjournment becomes the verdict (Frontline / Aug 2025)
▪ Read India report: INDIA – COUNTRY FACTSHEET 2025 (World Organization Against Torture / Jun 2025)

▪ Release Elgar Parishad Political Prisoners Immediately (Peoples Democracy Jan 2023)
▪ 4,484 People Died in Police Custody Since 2020: Govt Data (The Swaddle / Jul 2022)