Background – free them all

Mumbai Police Book TISS Students For Event On GN Saibaba Death Anniversary; Rekindles 2017 Incident

14/10/2025 Asha

Mumbai Police Book TISS Students For Maoist-Linked GN Saibaba Death Anniversary; Rekindles 2017 Incident Of Taking Students To Naxal Training Camps In Forest

14/10/2025

The Communemag / by The Commune

The Mumbai Police on 13 October 2025 registered a First Information Report (FIR) against at least ten students of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) for allegedly organizing an event to commemorate the death anniversary of former Delhi University professor GN Saibaba.
… This incident is not the first time TISS has been linked to allegations involving Naxalite activities. In 2018, as per an India Today report, the Maharashtra Police had claimed that accused activist Mahesh Raut, an alumnus of TISS, had taken students from the institute to meet underground Maoist leaders in forest areas.
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When a spontaneous gathering of students is criminalised

15/10/2025

Groundxero / by freespeechcollective

Recording the sequence of events and observations on the current events unfolding in TISS, Mumbai, from students’ perspective
What is the price of political engagement and learning in a higher educational institute in India? It seems that young people who seek to read, talk to each other and understand any issue are slapped with FIRs before they can fully make up their minds on what stance to take.
On Sunday, 12 October 2025, students at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai gathered to read a few poems written by Professor GN Saibaba to mark his death anniversary. They gathered in a peaceful manner, read the poems, placed a few candles around a photograph of Professor Saibaba and dispersed—all in about ten minutes. For many of the students, this year has been the first time they have learnt of the scholar and activist’s life, work, and death. The gathering came as a spontaneous response to discovering his poems.
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Also read/watch:
▪ G.N. Saibaba’s Lifelong Campaign Was Against the Violence of Silencing (The Wire | by Rona Wilson | Oct 2024)
▪ 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)
▪ Surendra Gadling’s Computer Was Attacked, Incriminating Documents Planted: Arsenal Consulting (The Wire / July 2021)

▪ 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

Delhi University Vice Chancellor’s speech criticising ‘urban naxals’ draws ire

08/10/2025 Asha

PUCL condemns regressive and defamatory views of DU Vice Chancellor Prof. Yogesh Singh: At odds with Constitutional values

09/10/2025

Countercurrents.org / by People’s Union For Civil Liberties

People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) India, is shocked at the troubling views expressed by Dr Yogesh Singh, professor and Vice Chancellor Delhi University on 28th September, 2025 in a speech titled “Naxal Mukt Bharat: Ending Red Terror Under Modi’s Leadership, Why Campuses are Targets?’
…
In the over 20 minute speech, replete with unsubstantiated and defamatory statements about alleged “urban naxals” on campus, Prof Singh named Delhi university’s professors and student activists charged and imprisoned under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, including members of the feminist student group Pinjar Tod (Devangana Kalita and Natasha Narwal), charged in the Delhi riots case and Prof Hany Babu and professors Dr Shoma Sen and Dr Anand Teltumbde (mispronounced by Prof Singh as Teltumbedke), charged in the Bhima Koregaon case.
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Delhi University V-C’s speech criticising ‘urban naxals’, Pinjra Tod movement draws ire

08/10/2025

The Indian Express / by Express News Service

Delhi University Vice-Chancellor Yogesh Singh’s speech alleging the presence of “Urban Naxals” in universities and criticising movements like ‘Pinjra Tod’ has triggered protests from students and faculty.
… Referring to the 2018 Bhima Koregaon case, Singh named DU professor Hany Babu and academics Rona Wilson and Anand Teltumbde, saying, “And these are not isolated cases.”
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Also read:
▪ As Maharashtra Govt Brings Bill Against ‘Urban Naxalism’, Activists Fear Criminalisation of Dissent (The Wire / Jul 2025)
▪ 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)
▪ From ‘tukde tukde gang’ to ‘urban Naxal’: How media trials enable the government to stifle dissent (Scroll.in / Sep 2018)

Celebration to Incarceration: The Bhima-Koregaon Case So Far

17/09/2025 Asha

Outlook / by Pritha Vashisth

What began in 2018 as a commemoration of anti-caste resistance turned into an eight-year-long legal ordeal, with 16 lawyers, poets, professors and activists jailed under anti-terror laws—many without trial, and some still behind bars today
Summary
◦ The Bhima-Koregaon event in 2018, a Dalit-led commemoration, was followed by violence—leading to the arrest of 16 activists, academics, and lawyers.
◦ All accused were charged under the harsh UAPA law, allowing long detentions without evidence or trial—Fr Stan Swamy died in custody.
◦ Eight of the 16 have been granted bail, but some remain jailed as courts have not yet ruled on their discharge petitions.
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)

▪ Bhima Koregaon: Challenging Caste. Brahminism’s wrath against dreamers of equality

Author: Ajaz Ashraf
Publisher: AuthorsUpFront
Publishing Date: June 2024
Binding: Paperback
Language: English
Pages: 496
Read more/order
▪ Book Excerpt | How Bhima Koregaon Became a Trope for Dalit Pride and Assertion (The Wire │ by Ajaz Ashraf │ June 2024)

▪ The Incarcerations: Bhima Koregaon And The Search For Democracy In India

Author: Alpa Shah
Publishing Date: March 2024
Publisher: Harper Collins Publisher
Pages: 672
Read more / order
▪ Book Excerpt: The story of an ‘Urban Naxal’ (Deccan Herald | by Alpa Shah | April 2024 )

The Public Security Act is unconstitutional and anti-democratic – Protests across Maharashtra

10/09/2025 Asha

Protests across Maharashtra denounce the Public Security Act as unconstitutional and anti-democratic [picture galleries]

10/09/2025

Sabrangindia / by Sabrangindia

Opposition, rights groups, and people’s movements unite to call it an “anti-people, anti-democratic law”
A wave of protests swept across Maharashtra today as opposition parties, civil society organizations, and grassroots groups came together to denounce the recently passed Maharashtra Public Security Bill, branding it a “Public Oppression Bill.” Demonstrations took place in Mumbai, Pune, Kolhapur, Solapur, Palghar, Beed, Hingoli, Dhule, Gadchiroli, Gondia, and several other districts, marking one of the largest coordinated state-wide agitations in recent years.
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PSA a bid to criminalise varied organisations: Sudha Bharadwaj

31/08/2025

Hindustan Times / by HT Correspondent

Bharadwaj was among the speakers at a webinar organised by All India Inquilabi Youth and Students Alliance (ALIYSA) and National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM) along with senior advocate Mihir Desai and activist Ulka Mahajan
Human rights lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj said on Saturday that it was a great thing that the civil society in Maharashtra had already begun protesting against the Maharashtra Special Public Security Act, passed by the state’s legislative assembly in its recently concluded monsoon session.
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Maharashtra Special Public Security Act, Pre-Emptive Criminalisation And Indefinite Surveillance

22/08/2025

Outlook / by Anand Teltumbde

The MSPSA gives the state-corporate nexus the legal means to suppress participatory democracy under the guise of public security.
On July 10, 2025, the Maharashtra Vidhan Sabha passed a revised version of the Maharashtra Special Public Security Act (MSPSA), exactly one year after the original draft was introduced on July 11, 2024, by the Shiv Sena-BJP coalition under Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. Initially framed as a response to the perceived threat of “urban Naxalism”, the Bill claimed to address the alleged infiltration of Maoist ideology into urban areas through affiliated organisations offering logistical support and shelter to underground cadres.
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Also read:
▪ Civil society gears up to protest Public Security Bill (Hindustan Times / Sep 2025)
▪ Maharashtra Special Public Security Act, Pre-Emptive Criminalisation And Indefinite Surveillance (Outlook | by Anand Teltumbde | Aug 2025)
▪ New Maharashtra Security Law Open To Abuse, Threatens Rights; Say ‘No’ To It (Deccan Chronicle / Aug 2025)
▪ Insecurity By Law: A Critique of the Maharashtra Special Public Security Bill in the Context of India’s Banning Regime (PUDR / Jul 2025)
▪ Maharashtra: Activists, Lawyers Added to ‘Union War Book’, Listed as ‘Enemies of the State’ (The Wire / Jul 2021)

Ongoing detention of activists without bail, criminalisation of dissent and ban on books

08/09/2025 Asha

monitor.civicus.org / by CIVICUS

India’s civic space is rated as ‘repressed’ by the CIVICUS Monitor. Even as the country celebrated its 79th Independence Day on 15th August 2025, the government continued to target activists and civil society organisations by misusing draconian anti-terror and sedition laws to silence dissent. Laws like the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) are used to keep activists and academics behind bars and to fabricate charges against those critical of the government and its polarising, discriminative and anti-poor policies.
…
BK-16 activists detained for years continue to seek bail
Academic and anti-caste activist Hany Babu was due to appear before the Bombay High Court seeking regular (indefinite) bail on 12th August 2025 after his request was approved by the Supreme Court on 16th July 2025. However, his bail hearing has been delayed without prior notice until 8th September 2025. He has spent more than 5 years in jail awaiting trial.
Hany Babu, who has been held in pre-trial detention since his formal arrest on 28 July 2020, has applied for bail on at least five separate occasions, including medical bail, but has yet to be approved.
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Also read:
▪ India: Submission to the UN Human Rights Committee on the deterioration of civic space (CIVICUS /Jul 2024)
▪ Civic Freedoms in India ‘Repressed’: Global Monitor Civicus (The Wire / Mar 2023)

No trial, no bail; no justice

05/09/2025 Asha

Madhyamam / by Editorial Desk

The government is delaying the trial without even starting it, as there is no evidence to establish fabricated charges against the accused, and for buying time to produce false witnesses and false evidence.
… Dr Hani Babu, a Keralite professor at Delhi University, has been facing this kind of ‘punishment’ for more than five years. Hani Babu’s crime is that he campaigned against caste-based injustices and social inequalities. He has been arrested and sent to a Maharashtra jail in the Bhima-Koregaon-Elgar Parishad case, which has implicated leading rights activists in the country, from Stan Swami to Sudha Bharadwaj.
Read more

Also read:
▪ In Surendra Gadling’s case, adjournment becomes the verdict (Frontline / Aug 2025)
▪ Who Is a ‘Political Prisoner’? Rona Wilson Says Caste and Religion Are Key to the Answer (The Wire / Feb 2025)
▪ Many Prisoners at Taloja Jail Not Produced Before Court For Years, Reveals Survey by Surendra Gadling and Sagar Gorkhe (The Wire / Feb 2025)
▪ When Push Comes to Shove: Tracking Judicial Recusals and Transfers (The Wire / Apr 2023)
▪ Inconsistencies in Bail Orders Mean Individual Liberty Is the Outcome of Judicial Lottery (The Wire / Oct 2022)

Koregaon Bhima Probe: Spotlight on Uddhav Thackeray

03/09/2025 Asha

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

Pune Mirror / by Swapnil Hajare

Committee asks former CM to submit Sharad Pawar’s letter by Sept 22
The ongoing Koregaon Bhima Commission of Inquiry has taken a decisive turn, putting former chief minister and Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray into the spotlight. The commission has formally requested Thackeray to produce a letter allegedly written to him by Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) supremo Sharad Pawar in January 2020, which, according to claims, blamed the then BJP-led government of Devendra Fadnavis for orchestrating the January 1, 2018 Koregaon Bhima violence.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Bhima Koregaon commission gets 18th extension (Hindustan Times / Aug 2025)
▪ Alternative reading of Bhima Koregaon: A Maharashtra outfit is trying to advance Dalit cause from Hindutva orbit (The Indian Express / Apr 2025)
▪ 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 │ by Ajaz Ashraf │ June 2024)

Civil society gears up to protest Public Security Bill / PSA a bid to criminalise organisations

03/09/2025 Asha

Civil society gears up to protest Public Security Bill

03/09/2025

Hindustan Times / by Mayura Janwalkar

Civil society in Maharashtra plans protests against the “draconian” Special Public Security Bill, claiming it suppresses dissent and violates rights.
Civil society groups in Maharashtra are preparing to launch protests against the Maharashtra Special Public Security Bill, 2024, calling it “draconian” and an attempt to suppress dissent against the state.
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PSA a bid to criminalise varied organisations: Sudha Bharadwaj

31/08/2025

Hindustan Times / by HT Correspondent

Also read:
▪ Maharashtra Special Public Security Act, Pre-Emptive Criminalisation And Indefinite Surveillance (Outlook | by Anand Teltumbde | Aug 2025)
▪ New Maharashtra Security Law Open To Abuse, Threatens Rights; Say ‘No’ To It (Deccan Chronicle / Aug 2025)
▪ Insecurity By Law: A Critique of the Maharashtra Special Public Security Bill in the Context of India’s Banning Regime (PUDR / Jul 2025)

Who is a ‘Naxal’?

25/08/2025 Asha

CPI(M) poster campaign 2020

The Leaflet / by Justice K. Chandru (Retd.)

The home minister’s accusation against vice-presidential candidate Justice Sudarshan Reddy should make us reflect deeply on how certain terms have been weaponised to invalidate the lifeworks of public intellectuals, and how the higher judiciary itself has enabled this.
…
Who is a Naxal?: The attack on public intellectuals and the judiciary’s silent complicity
Of late, supporters of the ruling regime have weaponised the label of ‘Naxal’ and ‘urban Naxal’ to name-call public intellectuals who have opposed them. We saw similar allegations being deployed against intellectuals and social activists who have been imprisoned under the notorious Unlawful Lawful Activities (Prevention) Act (‘UAPA’) in the Bhima Koregaon case.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Don’t Distort SC’s Salwa Judum Ruling or Resort to Name Calling, Former Judges Tell Amit Shah (The Wire / Aug 2025)
▪ Fall of Democracy’s Last Bastion: Election Commission as the BJP’s Strategic Shield (The Wire | by Anand Teltumbde | Aug 2025)
▪ The Maharashtra Special Public Security Bill Perpetuates India’s Banning Regime (The Wire / Aug 2025)
▪ Insecurity By Law: A Critique of the Maharashtra Special Public Security Bill in the Context of India’s Banning Regime (PUDR / Jul 2025)
▪ From ‘tukde tukde gang’ to ‘urban Naxal’: How media trials enable the government to stifle dissent (Scroll.in / Sep 2018)

The radical Hindutva links of the men arrested for lynching a Muslim man in Maharashtra

25/08/2025 Asha

Scroll.in / by Tabassum Barnagarwala

Social media accounts of four of the accused reveal they are members of an organisation founded by the hardliner Sambhaji Bhide.
On August 11, Suleman Rahim Khan Pathan was sitting with a Hindu woman in a cafe in Maharashtra’s Jamner town when a group of men forced him to go along with them.
The 21-year-old was driven around in a van and brutally assaulted before finally being dropped off at a bus stand in his village. Khan died of his injuries.
… Scroll’s analysis of their social media accounts showed that the four were active members of Shri Shiv Pratishthan Hindustan, an organisation formed by the Hindutva hardliner Sambhaji Manohar Bhide, who was formerly associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
In December 2022, Dalit groups and political activists had accused Bhide of instigating violence in Bhima Koregaon village through provocative speeches.
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)
▪ Samabhji Bhide, Milind Ekbote instigated Bhima Koregaon riots: Accused event organiser tells Inquiry Commission (Bar & Bench / Sep 2021)
▪ India’s Hindu Nationalist Project Relies on Brutal Repression (Jacobinmag / April 2021)
▪ Bhima Koregaon violence: Dalit group demands action against Sambhaji Bhide (The Indian Express / Jan 2021)
▪ Casting a Veil – What we miss by ignoring Maratha caste politics in the Bhima Koregaon case (The Caravan, Dec 2020)