Asha – Page 5 – free them all

Surendra Gadling seeks contempt action against Navi Mumbai police

25/10/2024 Asha

Elgar Parishad case accused seeks contempt action against Navi Mumbai cop

25/10/2024

India Today / by Vidya

Surendra Gadling and 14 other activists have been charged in connection with alleged provocative speeches delivered at the Elgar Parishad conclave held in Pune on December 31, 2017.
An accused in the 2018 Elgar Parishad Maoist links case has moved an application before a special NIA court, seeking action against the Navi Mumbai police commissioner and reserve police inspector at Kalamboli headquarters for not producing him in court physically for hearings.
He also moved a plea seeking to initiate contempt proceedings against prison authorities for not providing him with a cot in prison despite the special court’s order.
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Lawyer accused in Elgaar Parishad case seeks action against Navi Mumbai police

25/10/2024

The Indian Express / by Express News Service

Last week, Gadling and six others had gone on a hunger strike to protest not being brought to court for three hearings from Taloja jail where they are lodged.
Lawyer Surendra Gadling, who is facing charges in the Elgaar Parishad case, filed a plea before a special court on Thursday seeking action against the Navi Mumbai police commissionerate stating that a government resolution on reserving police to escort undertrials to court is being flouted.
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Also read:
▪ Elgaar Parishad case undertrials on protest path for not being produced in court for successive hearings (The Telegraph / Oct 2024)

G.N. Saibaba’s Lifelong Campaign Was Against the Violence of Silencing

25/10/2024 Asha

The Wire / by Rona Wilson

Activist Rona Wilson, incarcerated in the Elgar Parishad case that has still not gone into trial, pens a note for a friend.

“I have lived all my conscious life on the campuses of learning and teaching in search of knowledge, love and freedom. In the course of this search, I learnt that freedom for a few was no freedom.”

– G.N. Saibaba, from Why Do You Fear My Way So Much? Poems and Letters from Prison

The untimely death of G.N. Saibaba (fondly known as Sai among his friends and well-wishers) when he was about to start his life afresh after acquittal betrays the brutality and inhumanity that the state had meted out to him during his long incarceration.
Read more

Also read/watch:
▪ G.N. Saibaba’s Life Is Not Just a Chronicle of His Times, but Also What the Times Refused to Chronicle (The Wire / Oct 2024)
▪ 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)
▪ Five Years of Incarceration – and the Audacity of Hope (The Wire | Rona Wilson | Jul 2023)

▪ Video: State’s Job is to Serve People, Not Punish Them: G N Saibaba

en | 38:33 | 2024

Newsclick / by Newsclick Team

Former DU professor G.N. Saibaba, who passed away in Hyderabad on Saturday, had recounted his harrowing ordeal during 10 years in jail at a press conference in New Delhi in March this year.
Watch video

InSAF Webinar with Ajaz Ashraf on his book: Bhima Koregaon Challenging Caste (Oct 26)

25/10/2024 Asha

By INSAF India / @IndInsaf

Join us this Saturday for an online conversation with Ajaz Ashraf on his new book, Bhima Koregaon: Challenging Caste (2024).
Share widely, and we hope to see many of you there!
You can register here

Also watch/read:

▪ Video | Many Meanings of Bhima Koregaon: Ajaz Ashraf

By Daanish Bin Nabi

en | 20:12min | 2024
Watch video
▪ Process as Punishment – Recent books that bear witness to the BK-16’s incarceration (The Caravan / Jul 2024)
▪ Book Excerpt | How Bhima Koregaon Became a Trope for Dalit Pride and Assertion (The Wire │ by Ajaz Ashraf │ June 2024)

Koregaon Bhima violence a matter of ‘larger conspiracy’: State tells Inquiry Commission

24/10/2024 Asha

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

The Indian Express / by Chandan Haygunde

The Commission has asked lawyers representing different parties and witnesses to submit their final arguments.
While making oral submission of his final argument before the Koregaon Bhima Commission of Inquiry, advocate Shishir Hiray, who represents the state, claimed the violence in Koregaon Bhima area on January 1, 2018 was a matter of a “larger conspiracy.” Hiray also justified the actions taken by the police department in handling the January 1 violence situation.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Book Excerpt | How Bhima Koregaon Became a Trope for Dalit Pride and Assertion (The Wire │ by Ajaz Ashraf │ June 2024)
▪ Police Linked to Hacking Campaign to Frame Indian Activists (Wired.com / June 2022)
▪ They were Accused of plotting to overthrow the Modi government – The evidence was planted, a new report says (Washington Post / Feb 2021)
▪ One year of Bhima-Koregaon case: Part I | History of a 200-year-old battle and why it still matters (The Leaflet / Jan 2019)
▪ One year of Bhima-Koregaon case: Part II | Why Elgar Parishad spooked Sambhaji Bhide and Milind Ekbote, the alleged architects of January 1, 2018 anti-Dalit violence (The Leaflet / Jan 2019)

Demonising dissent: GN Saibaba’s death and the dark siede of UAPA’s manipulation

19/10/2024 Asha

en | 13:32 | 2024

The News Minute / by Pooja Prasanna

From 2014 to 2022, 8,719 people were charged under the draconian UAPA. A majority are languishing in jail, with trials delayed and bail denied, as in the case of Professor GN Saibaba.
… In this week’s Let Me Explain, Pooja Prasanna looks at how jails mistreat people, how courts are complacent in denying justice and the blatant abuse of power by the police and governments where evidence and witnesses are fabricated or manipulated.
Watch video

Hunger strike called off for now | Not Produced in Court Despite Directions – Elgar Parishad Accused Go on Hunger Strike

18/10/2024 Asha

Elgaar Parishad case undertrials on protest path for not being produced in court for successive hearings

20/10/2024

The Telegraph / by Pheroze L. Vincent

Non-availability of police escorts is a common reason for undertrials not being produced in courts across India
Seven inmates at the Taloja Central Prison in Navi Mumbai, awaiting trial in the 2018 Elgaar Parishad case, on Saturday evening ended the hunger strike that they had started on Friday to protest against police who didn’t produce them in court for successive hearings.
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by Sukanya Shantha @ sukanyashantha (Oct 20)

Update: The hunger strike has been called off for now.
The prison officials submitted an urgent application to the court & have assured them that they’ll be a produced before the NIA court on Oct 24.
If the seven men aren’t presented then, they plan to resume their hunger strike.

Not Produced in Court Despite Directions, Seven Elgar Parishad Accused Go on Hunger Strike

18/10/2024

The Wire / by The Wire Staff

The activists have not been produced before the court for the last three hearings in the case. Seven human rights defenders facing prolonged incarceration in the infamous Elgar Parishad case went on a hunger strike on Friday (October 18).
The activists have not been produced before the court for the last three hearings in the case. Today, despite a court order, the Navi Mumbai police failed to provide an escort team to take the incarcerated individuals from the Taloja central prison to the special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court located in south Mumbai, prompting the activists to announce their hunger strike.
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Book review | The historical backstory: Bhima Koregaon – Challenging Caste.

18/10/2024 Asha

The Telegraph / by Sharmila Purkayastha

Leaving aside the somewhat extended Maoist plot, a narrative challenge in the book, Ashraf’s contribution lies in his excavation of caste contestations of modern Maharashtra
In the opening pages of Bhima Koregaon, Ajaz Ashraf sounds a word of caution when he tells the reader that the book lacks a beginning. Not just beginnings but tracing thematic connections is difficult since diverse events are yoked together across a wide swathe of historical time ranging from Shivaji’s coronation in 1674 till now.
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Bhima Koregaon: Challenging Caste. Brahminism’s wrath against dreamers of equality

Author: Ajaz Ashraf
Publisher: AuthorsUpFront
Publishing Date: June 2024
Pages: 496
Challenging Caste reads the violence at Bhima Koregaon as a clash between two worldviews – one striving to flatten the social hierarchy, the other justifying and perpetuating it. This book rips apart the Maoist conspiracy theory and the Urban Naxal narrative.
Read more/order

Also watch/read:

▪ Video | Many Meanings of Bhima Koregaon: Ajaz Ashraf

By Daanish Bin Nabi

en | 20:12min | 2024
Watch video
▪ Process as Punishment – Recent books that bear witness to the BK-16’s incarceration (The Caravan / Jul 2024)

Hany Babu moves Bombay High Court for bail

16/10/2024 Asha

Former Delhi University Professor Hany Babu Moves Bombay HC For Bail In Elgar Parishad-Maoist Links

17/10/2024

Free Press Journal / by Urvi Mahajani

When the plea was listed for hearing before a bench headed by Justice Bharati Dangre, on Wednesday, it was informed that another HC bench had decided bail pleas of co-accused. The bench then directed the HC registry to take appropriate steps to list the matter before the same bench.
Former Delhi University professor Hany Babu, an accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, has approached the Bombay High Court again seeking bail in the Bhima Koregaon violence case of 2018.
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Bhima Koregaon accused Hany Babu moves Bombay High Court for bail

16/10/2024

Bar & Bench / by Sahyaja MS

Babu was arrested on July 28, 2020, on charges of being a member of the CPI (Maoist) and being involved in an alleged conspiracy to attack Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Delhi University professor Hany Babu has approached the Bombay High Court again seeking bail in the Bhima Koregaon violence case of 2018.
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Jailed academic Hany Babu moves Bombay High Court for bail

16/10/2024

Maktoob / by Maktoob Staff

Delhi University professor and human rights defender Hany Babu, who has been languishing in jail under the draconian UAPA since 2020, has approached the Bombay High Court again, seeking bail in the 2018 Bhima Koregaon violence case.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Hany Babu completes four years in prison without bail, trial (Maktoobmedia.com / Jul 2024)
▪ Ex-DU prof Hany Babu withdraws bail plea in Supreme Court (Hindustan Times / May 2024)

How Long Is Too Long for an Undertrial Prisoner To Be Detained?

14/10/2024 Asha

The Wire / by Hany Babu and Surendra Gadling

If after conviction, the term of one’s sentence can be commuted to its one-third at the executive’s will, we propose that the same formula can be adopted in fixing the maximum period for which an undertrial prisoner can be detained.

Originally published on The Proof of Guilt blog, this post was written by Hany Babu and Surendra Gadling, who have been detained in prison as ‘undertrials’ since 2018 and 2020 respectively. This piece was published simultaneously with the Indian Constitutional Law and Philosophy blog.

Dedicated to the fellow undertrial prisoners languishing in the prisons of India with the hope that the system would sooner than later wake up to their plight; and that one day prisons, if not still obsolete, would at least have become places where those proven guilty are held, and not places that incarcerate those who are presumed to be innocent.
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Mahayuti govt compelled to appropriate INDIA alliance Constitution driven call?

14/10/2024 Asha

Sabrangindia / by Tanya Arora

As the Maharashtra Assembly elections approach, with the announcement due any day now, the Shinde government has rolled s out last-minute welfare measures! And its “alliance partner,” the BJP has today issued appropriate-ory advertisements, with deputy chief minister Devendra Phadnavis prostrating before a statue of Dr BR Ambedkar; this while the state regime continues to undermine constitutional values while exploiting Dr. Ambedkar’s legacy to secure votes from marginalised communities
… One also cannot forget the infamous Bhima Koregaon case, which is another chilling example of how dissent, especially from Dalit and Adivasi rights activists, has been criminalised in Maharashtra. The case stems from the January 2018 Bhima Koregaon violence, where clashes broke out after Dalits gathered to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Bhima Koregaon, a symbolic event marking Dalit pride and resistance.
Read more

Also read:
▪ A New Bill Shows Maharashtra Wants to Become a Police State Before Combatting Left-Wing Extremism (The Wire / Jul 2024)
▪ What is Maharashtra’s new Bill to curb ‘Naxalism in urban areas’? (The Indian Express / Jul 2024)
▪ Maharashtra: Activists, Lawyers Added to ‘Union War Book’, Listed as ‘Enemies of the State’ (The Wire / Jul 2021)