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Category: Persecution

A caged bird can still sing – clearing Fr Stan’s name

A caged bird can still sing – clearing Fr Stan’s name

Illustration by #bakeryprasad

The Tablet / by Joseph Xavier SJ

The Indian Jesuit and human rights defender Fr Stan Swamy, who was suffering from Parkinson’s Disease, died in custody, aged 84, in 2021. He would have been 88 on 26 April this year. Jesuits around the world are calling on the Government of India to declare him innocent of the crimes of which he was accused.
Fr Stan Swamy died as an “undertrial” at Holy Family Hospital, Mumbai on July 5, 2021. In 2023, I met Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves and Anand Teltumbde in Mumbai after they were released on bail. All three were implicated in the Bhima Koregaon case, popularly known as the BK16 or Elgar Parishad case, as there were 16 accused.
Arun Ferreira lived with Stan in the same prison cell and took care of Stan like a mother. Vernon and Anand became good friends discussing various socio-political issues. 
Read more

Also read/watch:
▪ Caged birds and prison songs: In chorus, Stan Swamy and the Bhima Koregaon accused kept hope alive (Scroll.in | by Vernon Gonsalves | Jul 2023)
▪ How the system broke Stan Swamy: A cell mate recalls the activist’s last days in prison (Scroll.in | by Arun Ferreira | Aug 2021)

▪ Video: Testimony of Stan Swamy, two days before his arrest on 8 October 2020.


en | 7:48 min | Oct 6, 2020
Watch video

Learning About Strength, Solidarity and the Injustices of Incarceration / Voices from the Purgatory

Learning About Strength, Solidarity and the Injustices of Incarceration / Voices from the Purgatory

Learning About Strength, Solidarity and the Injustices of Incarceration

04/04/2025

The Wire / by Meenaz Kakalia

In ‘The Feared’, Neeta Kolhatkar interviews 11 political prisoners and their loved ones about their struggles, their resilience and their joys.
While memoirs of political prisoners are not uncommon, what one doesn’t often find is their stories told through interviews which probe the more intimate aspects of their lives and the enduring ways in which their incarceration has affected their families and loved ones.
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Voices from the Purgatory

04/04/2025

The Telegraph / by Kartik Chauhan

The Feared is not only an urgent call for prison reforms but it also reveals an alarming history of forced and/or false incarcerations of political dissenters, opponents and activists in India
… The opening interview with Sudha Bharadwaj revisits her days in Yerawada and Byculla prisons. Bharadwaj talks about her daughter and the complexity of mulaqat processes in Indian prisons — a recurring conversation in the book wherein the interviewees report arbitrary rules that the prison authorities impose with impunity, often in flagrant violation of the prescribed Prison Manual.
Read more

Also read:
▪ The Feared – Conversations with Eleven Political Prisoners

Author: Neeta Kolhatkar
Publishing Date: Dec 2024
Publisher: S&S India
Pages: 272
During long discussions, sometimes taking place over multiple meetings, Kolhatkar unearths personal anecdotes from the time her interviewees were incarcerated, bringing into focus the human face of prison inmates, while also detailing the wretched conditions relating to space, hygiene, medical attention, and food that they experienced.
Read more /order

▪ ‘The Message Is Loud & Clear.’ Author Of New Book On 11 Indian ‘Prisoners Of Conscience’ & The Costs Of Defiance (Article 14 / March 2025)
▪ THE BK-16 PRISON DIARIES SERIES (THE POLIS PROJECT / 2024)
▪ Process as Punishment – Recent books that bear witness to the BK-16’s incarceration (The Caravan / Jul 2024)

Mahesh Raut gets interim bail for law exams

Mahesh Raut gets interim bail for law exams

PUDR campaign

Mahesh Raut gets interim bail to give LL.B exams

04/04/2025

Bar & Bench / Sahyaja MS

Raut has been behind bars since his arrest by Pune police in 2018 and is currently incarcerated in Taloja Central Jail. He has been pursuing law degree while in custody.
A special court in Mumbai on Thursday granted interim bail to Mahesh Raut, one of the accused in the 2018 Bhima Koregaon violence case, to enable him to attend his second-semester LL.B examinations. [Mahesh Raut v Vishrambaug Police Station]
The court permitted Raut to be released on bail from April 20 to May 16 for preparing and attending his Bachelor of Laws (LLB) exams.
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Mahesh Raut gets interim bail for law exams

03/04/2025

Deccan Herald / by pti

Raut was arrested in 2018 for his alleged role in the case and is currently lodged in Taloja jail in neighbouring Navi Mumbai.
A special NIA court on Thursday granted interim bail to Elgar Parishad-Maoist link case accused Mahesh Raut from April 20 to May 16 to appear for his law degree exams.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Year after being granted bail, Mahesh Raut remains in jail as stay extended (The Indian Express / Sep 2024)
▪ Maharashtra: Raising the bar from behind bars (Midday.com / May 2024)

NIA opposes plea by Anand Teltumbde to travel abroad, says he could abscond

NIA opposes plea by Anand Teltumbde to travel abroad, says he could abscond

NIA Opposes Dr Anand Teltumbde’s Plea To Travel Abroad, Citing Risk Of Absconding

04/04/2025

Free Press Journal / by Urvi Mahajan

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has opposed the plea by Dalit rights activist Dr. Anand Teltumbde.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has opposed the plea by Dalit rights activist Dr. Anand Teltumbde, one of the accused in the 2018 Elgar Parishad case, seeking permission to travel abroad, stating that there is a likelihood of him absconding.
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NIA opposes Anand Teltumbde’s plea to travel abroad, cites risk of absconding

04/04/2025

The Hindu / by Abhinay Deshpande

The accused scholar filed a plea to travel to the Netherlands and the U.K. for academic reasons; NIA denied on the grounds of his alleged involvment with CPI (Maoist).
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has opposed a plea by academician Anand Teltumbde, an accused in the Elgar Parishad case, seeking permission from the Bombay High Court to travel abroad for academic engagements. The agency argued that Mr. Teltumbde poses a flight risk and might seek asylum if allowed to leave the country.
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NIA opposes plea by Anand Teltumbde for foreign travel, says he could abscond

04/04/2025

Bar & Bench / by Sahyaja MS

Dr. Teltumbde, one of the accused in the 2018 Bhima Koregaon violence case, has moved the Bombay High Court seeking permission to travel abroad for academic engagements.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Thursday opposed the plea filed by Dalit rights activist Dr Anand Teltumbde before the Bombay High Court seeking permission to travel abroad for academic purposes.
In an affidavit filed before the High Court, the NIA explicitly voiced its apprehension that Dr Teltumbde might abscond and take shelter in foreign countries to avoid the trial in the Bhima Koregaon case in which he is an accused.
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Anand Teltumbde’s Activities Threaten India’s Sovereignty; Must Not Be Permitted To Go Abroad, Can Give Lectures Virtually: NIA To Bombay HC

03/04/2025

Live Law / by Narsi Benwal

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Thursday told the Bombay High Court that Dalit rights’ activist Dr Anand Teltumbde is an active member of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) (CPI-M), and is allegedly involved in activities that pose a ‘threat’ to the ‘sovereignty, security and integrity’ of India and thus he should not be permitted to travel to Amsterdam and the United Kingdom to attend academic assignments.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Anand Teltumbde Moves Bombay HC For Permission To Travel Abroad On Academic Assignments (India Today / March 2025)
▪ Has India Ever Been a Democracy? (The Wire | Anand Teltumbde | March 2025)
▪ In Maharashtra, Fadnavis’s Foray to Capture Bhima-Koregaon (The Wire | Anand Teltumbde | Jan 2025)
▪ Will the bail granted to Anand Teltumbde help others in the Bhima Koregaon case to get out of jail? (Scroll.in / Nov 2022)

SC adjourns bail pleas of Jyoti Jagtap, Mahesh Raut and Surendra Gadling

SC adjourns bail pleas of Jyoti Jagtap, Mahesh Raut and Surendra Gadling

Supreme Court adjourns bail pleas of Surendra Gadling and Jyoti Jagtap

27/03/2025

The Hindu / by pti

The Supreme Court also deferred hearing on the petition filed by the NIA challenging the bail granted to activist Mahesh Raut
The Supreme Court on Thursday adjourned by two weeks hearing on the bail plea of advocate Surendra Gadling and activist Jyoti Jagtap arrested in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case.
A bench of Justices M M Sundresh and Rajesh Bindal also deferred hearing on the petition filed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) challenging the bail granted to activist Mahesh Raut.
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by Bar & Bench (March 27):
The Supreme Court adjourns for two weeks the bail plea of Bhima Koregaon accused Jyoti Jagtap and Mahesh Raut, who are facing allegations of links with banned Maoist groups

The matter was listed today before a bench comprising Justices M.M. Sundresh and Rajesh Bindal.

by Bar & Bench (March 27)
The Supreme Court adjourns for two weeks the bail plea of Dalit rights activist and lawyer Surendra Gadling, who has been in jail since June 2018 under the UAPA for his alleged involvement in the 2018 Bhima Koregaon violence and his connection to the 2016 Gadchiroli Arson Case.

The matter was listed today before a bench comprising Justices M.M. Sundresh and Rajesh Bindal.

Also read:
▪ SC adjourns bail pleas of Surendra Gadling, Jyoti Jagtap in Bhima Koregaon case (Scroll.in / Feb 2025)
▪ The Supreme Court Is Making Bail Easier In Terrorism, Money Laundering Cases – Except When It Ignores Itself (article 14 / Sep 2024)
▪ SC gives Maha govt two weeks time to respond to lawyer Surendra Gadling’s bail plea (Daijiworld / Dec 2024)
▪ Year after being granted bail, Mahesh Raut remains in jail as stay extended (The Indian Express / Sep 2024)
▪ SC adjourns hearing on bail plea of Bhima Koregaon case accused Jyoti Jagtap (Hindustan Times / Jul 2024)

How an unsophisticated malware attack became India’s biggest state-sponsored cybercrime / Online Conversation

How an unsophisticated malware attack became India’s biggest state-sponsored cybercrime / Online Conversation

The Polis Project / by Mouli Sharma and Prashant Rahi

This is the third report in a three-part investigative series on the Elgar Parishad/Bhima Koregaon case. Read part one here and part two here.

In October 2014, five months after the arrest of the professor GN Saibaba, Stan Swamy’s computer was hacked. Unbeknown to the world, the nascent stages of investigation against the prime accused in the Elgar Parishad case, who came to be monikered the BK-16, had already begun in 2014 – four years before any of the arrests even took place.
The unknown attacker used a Remote Access Trojan – or RAT – sent through targeted phishing emails to compromise Swamy’s computer.
Read more
 

Dispatches: A Conversation on unravelling the Elgar Parishad / Bhima Koregaon case

With Prashant Rahi, Mouli Sharma and Arshu John
By The Polis Project / @project_polis
en | 49min | 2025
Listen to the recording on X Spaces Live

Also read:
▪ Incriminating evidence planted in computers: The Trojan solved the Bhima Koregaon case! (Anchored Narratives / Jan 2023)
▪ Hackers Planted Files to Frame an Indian Priest Who Died in Custody (Wired / Dec 2022)
▪ Police Linked to Hacking Campaign to Frame Indian Activists (Wired / June 2022)
▪ Leaked Data Shows Surveillance Net in Elgar Parishad Case May Have Crossed a Line (The Wire / July 2021)
▪ They were Accused of plotting to overthrow the Modi government – The evidence was planted, a new report says (Washington Post / Feb 2021)
▪ Why the letter about a ‘Rajiv Gandhi-type’ assassination plot to kill Modi is fake (Dailyo.in │ by Arun Ferreira and Vernon Gonsalves │ Jun 11, 2018)

Conjuring the BK16 Myth: How the Elgar Parishad case rests on fiction and deception

Conjuring the BK16 Myth: How the Elgar Parishad case rests on fiction and deception

Dispatches: A Conversation on unravelling the Elgar Parishad / Bhima Koregaon case with Prashant Rahi, Mouli Sharma and Arshu John

By The Polis Project / @project_polis

With Prashant Rahi, Mouli Sharma and Arshu John
By The Polis Project / @project_polis
en | 49min | 2025
Listen to the recording on X Spaces Live

Conjuring the BK16 Myth: How the Elgar Parishad case rests on fiction and deception

21/03/2025

The Polis Project / by Prashant Rahi and Mouli Sharma

This is the second report in a three-part investigative series on the Elgar Parishad/Bhima Koregaon case. Read part one here.
Three months after a Hindutva mob attacked a peaceful gathering of Dalit-Bahujan men, women, and children, a cabal from the Pune Urban Police mounted a bizarre prosecution, holding 16 eminent human rights defenders (HRDs) responsible for the Elgar Parishad, an anti-caste event held in the city, a day before. The infamous case has, however, come to draw its name less from the event, and more from the calamitous gathering that assembled on both sides of the river Bhima, on 1st January 2018, to pay homage to an obelisk-shaped martyrs’ column, at Perne Phata, opposite the village of Koregaon. In the months that followed, the HRDs were imprisoned in waves of arrests across the country, with no evidence so far linking them to the mob violence.
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)
▪ THE BK-16 PRISON DIARIES SERIES (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024-March 2025)
▪ My 7 years in Anda cell were the most inhuman form of solitary confinement: Prashant Rahi (rediff.com / Mar 2024)
▪ The Bhima Koregaon Arrests and the Resistance in India (Monthly Review / Apr 2022)

Anand Teltumbde Moves Bombay HC For Permission To Travel Abroad On Academic Assignments

Anand Teltumbde Moves Bombay HC For Permission To Travel Abroad On Academic Assignments

Credits: Drawing by Arun Ferreira / The Polis Project

Anand Teltumbde seeks High Court nod to travel abroad

19/03/2025

India Today / by Vidya

Professor Anand Teltumbde has asked the Bombay High Court to allow him to travel abroad for academic events in Europe. The NIA opposed the plea, arguing it should be filed in the trial court.
Professor Anand Teltumbde, an academician accused in the Elgar Parishad case, has asked the Bombay High Court to direct the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to return his passport and allow him to travel abroad for about a month to visit different universities.
Read more

Anand Teltumbde Moves Bombay High Court For Permission To Travel Abroad On Academic Assignments

19/03/2025

Live Law / by Live Law News Network

Dr Anand Teltumbde, one of the accused in the Bhima-Koregaon case, has approached the Bombay High Court seeking permission to travel abroad from Mumbai to Amsterdam as well as the United Kingdom to attend academic assignments.
Notably, Teltumbde has been made an accused in an FIR registered by the NIA for offences punishable under the IPC and the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. In November 2022, the High Court had granted bail to the professor on merits imposing certain conditions including that he will not leave the court’s jurisdiction without permission.
Read more

Also read:
▪ How the Right Wing Weaponises ‘Common Sense’ to Undermine Democratic Values (The Wire / March 2025)
▪ Has India Ever Been a Democracy? (The Wire | Anand Teltumbde | March 2025)
▪ In Maharashtra, Fadnavis’s Foray to Capture Bhima-Koregaon (The Wire | Anand Teltumbde | Jan 2025)
▪ BK-16 Prison Diaries: Anand Teltumbde reflects on his arrest and incarceration (The Polis Project | Anand Teltumbde | June 2024)
▪ Will the bail granted to Anand Teltumbde help others in the Bhima Koregaon case to get out of jail? (Scroll.in / Nov 2022)

▪ Iconoclast. A Reflective Biography of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar
by Anand Teltumbde


Publisher: ‎Penguin Viking
Language: ‎English
Hardcover: 700 pages
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Supreme Court to examine lack of facilities in jails for disabled prisoners after PIL cites Saibaba, Stan Swamy

Supreme Court to examine lack of facilities in jails for disabled prisoners after PIL cites Saibaba, Stan Swamy

Govt gets SC notice on plea asking better facilities for disabled prisoners

11/03/2025

Business Standard / by pti

Citing instances of professor G N Saibaba and activist Stan Swamy to highlight the “severe neglect” of disabled prisoners, the plea said necessary provisions should be incorporated in Prisoners Act
The Supreme Court has sought a response from the Centre on a plea seeking adequate facilities for disabled prisoners in jails, and implementation of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, in prisons across the country.
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Supreme Court to examine lack of facilities in jails for disabled prisoners after PIL cites Saibaba, Stan Swamy

08/03/2025

Bar & Bench / by Ummar Jamal

While Stan Swamy had passed away while lodged in jail as an undertrial prisoner, Saibaba had passed away last year a few months after he was acquitted and released from prison
The Supreme Court on Friday sought the response of the Central government to a Public Interest Litigation(PIL) seeking adequate facilities for disabled prisoners in jails and and full implementation of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPwD) Act of 2016 in prisons across the country [Sathyan Naravoor v. Union of India & Ors.]
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SC takes up the cause of disabled prisoners on the basis of a plea invoking Saibaba, Stan Swamy

07/03/2025

The Hindu / by Krishnadas Rajagopal

Petition raised a “serious” issue about the lack of disabled-friendly accommodation and facilities in prisons across the country
The Supreme Court on Friday (March 7, 2025) said a petition highlighting the trauma and inhumane conditions suffered by Professor G. Saibaba and the elderly Stan Swamy raised a “serious” issue about the lack of disabled-friendly accommodation and facilities in prisons across the country.
Read more

Also read:
▪ G.N. Saibaba’s Lifelong Campaign Was Against the Violence of Silencing (The Wire | by Rona Wilson | Oct 2024)
▪ Stan Swamy parallel in former DU professor Gokarakonda Naga Saibaba’s death after 10-year jail (The Telegraph / Oct 2024)
▪ Some personal reflections on prison medical care (The Leaflet | Vernon Gonsalves | Apr 2024)

BK-16 Prison Diaries: Sudhir Dhawale’s poem, “Prisoners of Consciousness”

BK-16 Prison Diaries: Sudhir Dhawale’s poem, “Prisoners of Consciousness”

To mark six years of the arbitrary arrests and imprisonment of political dissidents in the Bhima Koregaon case, The Polis Project is publishing a series of writings by the BK-16, and their families, friends and partners. By describing various aspects of the past six years, the series offers a glimpse into the BK-16’s lives inside prison, as well as the struggles of their loved ones outside. Each piece in the series is complemented by Arun Ferreira’s striking and evocative artwork.

BK-16 Prison Diaries: Sudhir Dhawale’s poem, “Prisoners of Consciousness”

07/03/2025

The Polis Project / by Sudhir Dhawale translated to English by Vernon Gonsalves

Of the six-and-a-half years I spent in prison in the Bhima Koregaon-Elgar Parishad case, four-and-a-half years were in the Anda cell. The Anda cell is a prison within a prison. Its stony walls and sight-obscuring forest of iron bars put the mental fortitude, ideological endurance and courage to the test. What happened to political prisoners like me confined to these cells of darkness? Why have prisons been built? For whom, and by whom? Prison is marked by many contradictions—between exploitation and theft; prisons and justice; prisons and democracy; prisons and correctional homes.
Read more

Also read:
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: Sagar Gorkhe on his battle to survive Taloja jail’s brutality (THE POLIS PROJECT / Feb 2025)
▪ BK-16 Prison Diaries: Varavara Rao on prisons as institutions of corruption, sadism and dehumanisation (THE POLIS PROJECT / OCT 2024)
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: RAMESH GAICHOR ON THE ELAGAR PRISONER’ S DEFIANCE OF THE NEO-PESHWAI PRISON SYSTEM (THE POLIS PROJECT / OCT 2024)
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: SAGAR GORKHE’S PARENTS ARE STRUGGLING IN HIS ABSENCE (THE POLIS PROJECT / JULY 2024)
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: RAMESH GAICHOR’S PARENTS JUST WANT TO MEET HIM AGAIN BEFORE THEY DIE (THE POLIS PROJECT / JULY 2024)
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: MINAL GADLING ON THE MANY CRUELTIES, IRONIES AND INJUSTICES OF SURENDRA’S IMPRISONMENT (THE POLIS PROJECT / JULY 2024)
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: RUPALI JADHAV TRAVELS TEN HOURS FOR FLEETING EXCHANGES WITH JYOTI JAGTAP (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: JENNY ROWENA ON THE FEAR OF PRISONS AND THE BRAHMINICAL SYSTEM BEHIND IT (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: ANAND TELTUMBDE REFLECTS ON HIS ARREST AND INCARCERATION (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: STORIES OF LOVE, MURDER AND CHILD MARRIAGE FROM SHOMA SEN’S YEARS IN PRISONS (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: ARUN FERREIRA ON THE FARCE AND TRAGEDY OF THE PANDEMIC IN PRISON (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: VERNON GONSALVES ON THE STRUGGLE TO READ AND WRITE BEHIND BARS (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ INTRODUCING THE BK-16 PRISON DIARIES SERIES (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)