Browsed by
Category: Persecution

New Maharashtra Security Law Open To Abuse, Threatens Rights; Say ‘No’ To It

New Maharashtra Security Law Open To Abuse, Threatens Rights; Say ‘No’ To It

Pic credits: Amnesty International

New Maharashtra Security Law Open To Abuse, Threatens Rights; Say ‘No’ To It

18/08/2025

Deccan Chronicle / by Aakar Patel

The term “Urban Naxalism” has no legal definition in Indian law. With its vague language, discriminatory focus, absence of judicial oversight, and high potential for misuse, the bill risks criminalising of legitimate dissent in one of our largest states
We celebrated Independence Day earlier this month, to mark the culmination of our freedom struggle. Independence and freedom from what? From alien rule and from all oppressive laws — no matter who imposes them on us. The governor of Maharashtra is currently examining a law passed by the state Assembly called the “Maharashtra Special Public Security Bill”.
Read more

Open letter: Withhold assent to the Maharashtra special public security bill

15/08/2025

Amnesty International / by Aakar Patel

Your Excellency Shri. Chandrapuram Ponnusamy Radhakrishnan, Governor of Maharashtra.
I write to you with grave concern regarding the recently passed Maharashtra Special Public Security Bill, which now awaits your assent. Though presented as a tool to combat “urban naxalism,” The Bill introduces vague, overboard, and ideologically biased provisions that pose an immediate threat to international and constitutionally protected rights and will criminalize dissent in the state.
The Honorable Chief Minister, Devendra Fadnavis, has asserted that the law will not be used to suppress government critics. However, the term “urban naxalism” has no legal definition in Indian law. It is a rhetorical and politically charged phrase – popularized in media and political discourse, not jurisprudence. Its vagueness allows it to be weaponized against civil society, often conflating peaceful dissent with sedition or terrorism. There is a troubling precedent. The Bhima Koregaon case, in which 16 activists were arrested under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act UAPA, demonstrates how this label has been used to detain individuals for years without trial.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Opposition Did Not Deal Well Enough With Maharashtra Bill Against ‘Urban Naxalism’: Sharad Pawar (The Wire / 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)

Supreme Court Agrees For Early Listing Of Surendra Gadling’s Bail Plea

Supreme Court Agrees For Early Listing Of Surendra Gadling’s Bail Plea

Surendra Gadling

Supreme Court Agrees For Early Listing Of Surendra Gadling’s Bail Plea

08/08/2025

Live Law / by Anmol Kaur Bawa

The Supreme Court today (August 8) accepted a request for early hearing of the bail plea by Dalit rights activist and advocate Surendra Gadling in the 2018 Bhima Koregaon case under the UAPA over alleged Maoist links.
Sr Advocate Anand Grover, appearing for Gadling, mentioned the matter before the bench of CJI BR Gavai and Justices K Vinod Chandran and NV Anjaria.
Read more

SC to consider listing bail plea of Surendra Gadling

08/08/2025

Hindustan Times / by PTI

The Supreme Court on Friday took note of repeated adjournments and assured early listing of the bail plea of advocate Surendra Gadling accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case.
A bench comprising Chief Justice B R Gavai and Justices K Vinod Chandran and N V Anjaria was urged by his counsel and senior advocate Anand Grover, who said his client had been in jail for “6.5 years”.
Read more

Also read:
▪ 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)
▪ Surendra Gadling’s Computer Was Attacked, Incriminating Documents Planted: Arsenal Consulting (The Wire / July 2021)
▪ Gadling in jail. Reason? As lawyer-activist he has been ‘unpleasant’ to India’s topcops (Counterview / Dec 2020)

Ramesh Gaichor Moves Bombay High Court, Seeks Interim Bail To Visit Ailing Father

Ramesh Gaichor Moves Bombay High Court, Seeks Interim Bail To Visit Ailing Father

Credits: Drawing by Arun Ferreira / The Polis Project

Live Law / by Narsi Benwal

The Bombay High Court on Wednesday (August 6) ordered the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to take instructions and file a reply in response to the petition filed by Ramesh Gaichor, one of the accused in the Bhima Koregaon – Elgar Parishad case, who has sought temporary bail to visit his ailing father.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Bail plea of Elgar Parishad case accused to take care of ailing father rejected (India Today / Jul 2025)
▪ Ramesh Gaichor on the Elgar prisoners’ defiance of the neo-Peshwai prison system (The Polis Project | by Ramesh Gaichor | Sep 2024)
▪ Ramesh Gaichor’s parents just want to meet him again before they die (The Polis Project / Jul 2024)

NIA court rejects Gautam Navlakha’s plea to stay in Delhi, slams repeated applications

NIA court rejects Gautam Navlakha’s plea to stay in Delhi, slams repeated applications

Bail ! Gautam with his partner Sabha Husain. May 2024.

Mumbai court denies Elgar Parishad case accused’s plea to visit Delhi

07/08/2025

India Today / by Vidya

Advocate Wahab Khan, argued that Gautam Navlakha had complied with all previous court conditions when earlier permitted to travel and that his request was genuine, time-bound.
A Special NIA Court in Mumbai has dismissed activist Gautam Navlakha’s application seeking permission to travel to Delhi for 45 days, sharply criticising the repeated nature of such requests and calling it a “deliberate attempt to circumvent judicial restrictions”.
Read more

NIA court rejects Gautam Navlakha’s plea to stay in Delhi, slams repeated applications

06/08/2025

Times of India / by Rebecca Samervel

In a scathing order rejecting the plea of 73-year-old activist, lawyer and 2018 Elgar Parishad accused Gautam Navlakha to travel and stay in Delhi for 45 days for personal and professional reasons, a special National Investigation Agency (NIA) judge criticised him for what it termed as “ingeniously” moving “application after application” to reside in the national capital, despite a previous plea for permanent residency being denied.
Read more

Can’t give nod ‘every now and then’: Court rejects Navlakha’s plea to travel to Delhi

05/08/2025

The Indian Express / by Express News Service

In the latest plea, he submitted that he wants to travel as his sister cannot come to Mumbai due to her health condition.
A special court rejected a plea filed by activist Gautam Navlakha, arrested in the Elgaar Parishad case, to stay in Delhi for 45 days to visit his 86-year-old sister and for other purposes.
In his plea, Navlakha sought permission to stay in Delhi from July 15 to August 30, citing that he had been similarly permitted in November 2024 and had abided with all conditions.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Bhima Koregaon case: Court rejects activist Gautam Navlakha’s plea to live in Delhi (Scroll.in / Jun 2025)
▪ BK-16 Prison Diaries: The ‘ordinary’ in extraordinary times: A captive’s life in Covid-19 (The Polis Project | by Gautam Navlakha | May 2025)
▪ Navlakha files application in court seeking permission to stay in Delhi (The Indian Express / Apr 2025)
▪ Gautam Navlakha granted bail by Supreme Court; orders him to pay 20 lakhs for the expenses incurred during his house arrest (cjp / May 2024)
▪ Elgar Parishad-Bhima Koregaon accused struggle to find house in city (Hindustan Times / Nov 2022)

The Maharashtra Special Public Security Bill Perpetuates India’s Banning Regime

The Maharashtra Special Public Security Bill Perpetuates India’s Banning Regime

Credits: Illustration by The Wire.

The Maharashtra Special Public Security Bill Perpetuates India’s Banning Regime

01/08/2025

The Wire / by Harish Dhawan and Paramjeet Singh

The Bill strikes at the heart of the fundamental right to association.
The Maharashtra assembly has passed the Maharashtra Special Public Security Bill (MSPSB), making it the latest addition to a growing arsenal of banning legislations that cloak sweeping state power to curb the fundamental right to freedom of association with the language of security.
From its title to its objective and provisions, the Bill is shrouded in layers of ambiguity.
Read more

Insecurity By Law: A Critique of the Maharashtra Special Public Security Bill in the Context of India’s Banning Regime

July 2025

PUDR / by People’s Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR)

The Maharashtra Bill, which has been designed specifically to target the ‘spread of Naxalism in urban areas,’ as evident in its ‘Object and Reasons’, is an offshoot of a popular narrative, a social media hashtag- the ‘Urban Naxal’, popularised by filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri.
…
Particularly in the wake of Elgar Parishad in 2017, the term became a common political lexicon used to describe anti-establishment protesters and dissenting voices. The term ‘Urban Naxal’ formed the backstory for the FIR filed against the people implicated for the Bhima Koregaon case, it even became a synonym for the case itself.
Read full report

Also read:
▪ Maharashtra’s Urban Naxal Bill and its New War on Civil Society – Criminalizing Dissent (Countercurrents / Jul 2025)
▪ As Maharashtra Govt Brings Bill Against ‘Urban Naxalism’, Activists Fear Criminalisation of Dissent (The Wire / Jul 2025)
▪ Maharashtra Assembly passes bill to curb ‘left-wing extremism‘ (Scroll.in / Jul 2025)
▪ Maharashtra: Top Cop Accuses Decades-Old Cultural, Rights Orgs of Working as ‘Naxal Fronts’ (The Wire / Feb 2022)

Why Hany Babu Writes From Prison

Why Hany Babu Writes From Prison

The Wire / by Sukanya Shantha

July 28, 2025 marks the fifth year of Babu’s arrest. In the past five years, he has written several times to his wife, daughter and other family members.
The best way to harm an academic is to simply lock them out of their computer and deny them access to their years of research. This is exactly what had happened to Hany Babu M.T, a professor at the Delhi University, when the Pune police had first raided his house on September 10, 2019. Ten months later, on July 28, 2020, Babu was arrested, as one of the 16 persons implicated in the Elgar Parishad case.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Delhi University Professor Hany Babu Marks Five Years in Jail Without Trial in Bhima Koregaon Case (FOEJ / Jul 2025)
▪ SC Allows Hany Babu to Approach Trial or High Court For Bail (The Wire / Jul 2025)
▪ Many Prisoners at Taloja Jail Not Produced Before Court For Years, Reveals Survey by Surendra Gadling and Sagar Gorkhe (The Wire / Feb 2025)
▪ How Long Is Too Long for an Undertrial Prisoner To Be Detained? (The Wire | by Hany Babu and Surendra Gadling | Oct 2024)
▪ In Taloja Central Jail, interviews with over 300 undertrial prisoners show denial of rights (The Leaflet | by Hany Babu & Surendra Gadling | Mar 2025)
▪ How Long Can the Moon Be Caged? Voices of Indian Political Prisoners

Authors: Suchitra Vijayan and Francesca Recchia
Publishing Date: Aug 2023
Publisher: Pluto Press
Pages: 247
Read more / order

Criminalizing Dissent: Maharashtra’s Urban Naxal Bill and its New War on Civil Society

Criminalizing Dissent: Maharashtra’s Urban Naxal Bill and its New War on Civil Society

Maharashtra’s Urban Naxal Bill and its New War on Civil Society -Criminalizing Dissent

23/07/2025

Countercurrents / by Dr Ranjan Solomon

“The price of liberty is eternal vigilance, not silent submission.”
(Inspired by Thomas Jefferson)

The Maharashtra government’s Special Public Security Bill, 2024, introduced to counter so-called “urban Naxal” activities is a perilous milestone in India’s accelerating slide into authoritarianism.
… Activists like Sudha Bharadwaj, Gautam Navlakha, and the late Fr. Stan Swamy were imprisoned for years without trial under charges of sedition and conspiracy. The Bhima Koregaon case was a dress rehearsal for exactly the kind of repression this bill now makes routine at the state level.
Read more

‘Urban Naxal’ To Maharashtra’s New Bill Rekindles Fears Of Criminalised Dissent

17/07/2025

Outlook / by Pritha Vashisth

The Bhima Koregaon case returns to focus as the Supreme Court allows bail plea revival—while Maharashtra’s sweeping Jan Suraksha Bill raises alarms over civil liberties, ambiguous terms, and the creeping criminalisation of protest.
A tiny pore of blood rinsed down the alley until one among the several injured was dead. Around seven years ago, on January 1, 2018, silence hovered over the annual celebration as a Hindu mob allegedly attacked a gathering assembled to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Bhima Koregaon. Decorated with plays, speeches, and songs, the state soon strangled this small village in Pune.
Read more

Maharashtra just passed a law that could jail you for peacefully protesting

16/07/2025

Frontline / by Amey Tirodkar

BJP-led government says it’s fighting “Urban Maoists”, but critics say the MSPS Bill is the biggest threat to free speech since the Emergency.
Days after the ruling BJP at the Centre and in Maharashtra observed the 50th anniversary of the Emergency and the curtailment of freedoms it entailed, the Maha Yuti government, led by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, passed the Maharashtra Special Public Security (MSPS) Bill, 2024, by voice vote in the Legislative Assembly on July 10.
Read more

Also read:
▪ As Maharashtra Govt Brings Bill Against ‘Urban Naxalism’, Activists Fear Criminalisation of Dissent (The Wire / Jul 2025)
▪ A New Bill Shows Maharashtra Wants to Become a Police State Before Combatting Left-Wing Extremism (The Wire / Jul 2024)

SC Allows Hany Babu to Approach Trial or High Court For Bail

SC Allows Hany Babu to Approach Trial or High Court For Bail

SC Allows Hany Babu to Approach Trial or High Court For Bail

16/07/2025

The Wire / by The Wire Staff

On Wednesday, Babu’s counsel submitted to the top court that he had undergone five years as an undertrial and withdrawn the special leave petition to move the high court.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday (July 16) granted liberty to former Delhi University Professor Hany Babu to approach either the trial court or the high court to seek bail in the Bhima Koregaon-Elgar Parishad conspiracy case under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act over alleged Maoist links, LiveLaw reported.
Read more

Hany Babu To Approach Trial Court Or HC, Or Revive Withdrawn SLP For Bail

16/07/2025

Live Law / by Gursimran Kaur Bakshi

The Supreme Court today (July 16) granted liberty to former Delhi University Professor Hany Babu to approach either the trial court or the High Court seeking bail in the Bhima Koregaon-Elgar Parishad conspiracy case under the UAPA over alleged Maoist links.
Read more

Also read:
▪ ‘Tell the judge he has done no crime’: The struggles of Hany Babu’s family (Scroll.in / Jul 2025)
▪ Supreme Court Refuses Urgent Listing For Hany Babu’s Application In Bhima Koregaon Case (Live Law / June 2025)

I saw firsthand how callous prison officials and their negligence led to Stan Swamy’s death

I saw firsthand how callous prison officials and their negligence led to Stan Swamy’s death

Scroll.in / by Arun Ferreira

The deterioration of the 84-year-old in Taloja Jail was evident. Jail medical staff watched it happen, recalls a fellow prisoner.

Ferreira was incarcerated along with Swamy in the prison hospital. He has been now released on bail on conditions, one of which disallows him from commenting about the case in the media.

“This is not a natural death, but the institutional murder of a gentle soul,” reads the statement by the family members of the people accused in the Elgar Parishad case that was released immediately after Father Stan Swamy’s death on July 5, 2021.
Some may consider these words a bit too harsh given Stan’s age (he was 84) and health (he had Parkison’s disease). However observing and experiencing the callous treatment meted out to Stan at Taloja Prison, I am inclined to endorse their view.
Read more

‘Tell the judge he has done no crime’: The struggles of Hany Babu’s family

‘Tell the judge he has done no crime’: The struggles of Hany Babu’s family

Scroll.in / Mekhala Saran

On July 28, Delhi University professor 57-year-old Hany Babu will complete five years of incarceration.
When the National Investigation Agency came for Babu in 2020, India was battling the Covid-19 virus, which is known to fester and multiply in densely packed spaces, such as prison cells.
The Delhi University professor, arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case, has been in jail for five years with no trial in sight.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Supreme Court Refuses Urgent Listing For Hany Babu’s Application In Bhima Koregaon Case (Live Law / June 2025)
▪ HC questions maintainability of Hany Babu’s fresh bail plea (Hindustan Times / May 2025)
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: JENNY ROWENA ON THE FEAR OF PRISONS AND THE BRAHMINICAL SYSTEM BEHIND IT (The Polis Project / June 2024)