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Category: Arrests

New Book on Bhima Koregaon Case Tells Uncomfortable Truths, But Brings Hope / Book launch

New Book on Bhima Koregaon Case Tells Uncomfortable Truths, But Brings Hope / Book launch

New Book on Bhima Koregaon Case Tells Uncomfortable Truths, But Brings Hope

31/04/2024

The Quint / by Mekhala Saran

Alpa Shah’s book, ‘The Incarcerations’, is alive with stories of fearlessness, but also of the cost it extracts.

“Well, I am off to NIA custody and do not know when I shall be able to talk to you again. However, I earnestly hope that you will speak out before your turn comes.”

– Anand Teltumbde, on the eve of his incarceration in April 2020

Alpa Shah’s book on the Bhima Koregaon incarcerations is not an easy read. When I first decided to review the book – before laying my hands on it – I thought it would not take me longer than a week.
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A new book recounts how 16 activists were imprisoned as terrorists, without trial

27/03/2024

Scroll.in / by Alpa Shah

An excerpt from ‘The Incarcerations: Bhima Koregaon and the Search for Democracy in India’
Amnesty International India and Oxfam India released a joint response the day Sudha Bharadwaj, Gautam Navlakha, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves and Varavara Rao were arrested. “The nationwide crackdown on activists, advocates and human rights defenders is disturbing and threatens core human rights values.”
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by Shireen Azam / @shireenazam (March 26:)
A full full house at @LSEpublicevents for the book release of (Bhima Koregaon) Incarcerations by @alpashah001

Video| Book launch/discussion: The Incarcerations: BK-16 and the search for democracy in India

26/03/2024

Hosted by the International Inequalities Institute, LSE Human Rights, Department of Anthropology and Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity

IN-PERSON AND ONLINE PUBLIC EVENT

Speakers:
Professor Alpa Shah.
Discussants: Professor Christophe Jaffrelot, Professor Tarun Khaitan and Priyanka Kotamraju
Chair: Professor Deborah James

Join us to launch and discuss Alpa Shah’s new book, The Incarcerations: BK-16 and the search for democracy in India.
As general elections fast approach in the world’s largest democracy, this event asks what democracy today must urgently ensure for our common future. In her latest book, Alpa Shah pulls back the curtain on Indian democracy to tell the remarkable and chilling story of the Bhima Koregaon case, in which 16 human rights defenders (the BK-16) – professors, lawyers, artists – have been imprisoned, without credible evidence and without trial, as Maoist terrorists.
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Watch on LSE’s YouTube channel.

Interview | Alpa Shah: India is not a safe place any more

23/03/2024

The News Statesman / by  Gavin Jacobson

Narendra Modi’s Hindu supremacism is capturing major state institutions while repressing minority groups and political activists.
… Shah exposes how the state engaged in a prolonged act of cyberwar against the so-called “BK-16”, hacking their emails and implanting incriminating evidence on their computers in order to prosecute them. It is the best book I’ve read about the full-scale assault on democracy in India, and with the general elections scheduled to conclude in June, it’s essential reading for an understanding of what is happening to the country right now.
On 18 March I met Shah at her office at the London School of Economics.

Gavin Jacobson: When did you decide to write a book about the BK-16?
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Hackers-for-Hire, Govt’s Media Control: Seven Takeaways From Studying the Arrests of the BK-16

15/03/2024

The Wire / by Alpa Shah

“…the evidence used to incarcerate the BK-16 was likely to have been implanted remotely through a hacker-for-hire mercenary gang infrastructure that has clients all over the world, but whose epicentre is in India.”
Excerpted with permission from Alpa Shah’s The Incarcerations: Bhima Koregaon and the Search for Democracy in India, HarperCollins 2024.
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Hacker-for-hire gang with links to Pune police planted emails on the computers of Bhima Koregaon accused: new book

14/03/2024

The Hindu / by Vijaita Singh

The mercenary hacker gang, headquartered in India, remotely implanted evidence, according to LSE professor’s book; cites cybersecurity researchers to claim gang’s connection to a Pune police officer
The alleged evidence used to incarcerate 16 people in the Bhima Koregaon case was “likely to have been implanted remotely through a hacker-for-hire mercenary gang infrastructure that has clients all over the world, but whose epicentre is in India,” according to claims made in a new book.
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The arrests putting Narendra Modi’s ‘fascist’ India on trial

14/03/2024

The Telegraph / by Andrew Whitehead

Stan Swamy, a Jesuit priest, died in custody in India in July 2021. He was 84. He had spent nine months in detention and had been repeatedly denied bail; yet he had not been convicted of any offence.
… Alpa Shah, an anthropology professor at the London School of Economics, argues in The Incarcerations that the arrest of Swamy and 15 others – lawyers, academics, poets, activists – in what has become known as the “BK case” reveals India’s authoritarian creep.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Why Courts Are Ignoring Concerns Of Planted Evidence In The Bhima-Koregaon Prosecution (article14 / Jan 2023)
▪ Police Linked to Hacking Campaign to Frame Indian Activists (Wired.com / June 2022)

Bhima Koregaon: The process continues to clot as punishment as another year passes by

Bhima Koregaon: The process continues to clot as punishment as another year passes by

Poster by #bakeryprasad

The Leaflet / by Ayaz Parrey and Sarah Thanawala

Many of the accused in the Bhima Koregaon–Elgar Parishad case have now spent one more year incarcerated without a trial. A far cry from the verbiage of high judicial officials that even a day’s denial of liberty is too much.
… Here is a recap of the major developments in the case this year, of bail applications granted, stayed and pending; the consistent pleas for the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to comply with the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), 1973; and the courts heeding to medical conditions-related pleas of the accused.
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Fadnavis prepares to fight the phantom of ‘urban naxals’

Fadnavis prepares to fight the phantom of ‘urban naxals’

Campaign, 2020

Deccan Herald / by Jyoti Punwani

Maharashtra, under Eknath Shinde and Devendra Fadnavis, is set to have a new ‘public security’ law where even peaceful expressions of dissent will be targeted.
… ‘Urban Naxals’ has been a favourite bogey of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government at the Centre, and was used as a label against the Leftist intellectuals arrested for the January 1, 2018 violence at Bhima Koregaon in Maharashtra.
Read more

Also read:
● ‘Urban Naxal’ is a label to terrorise intellectuals: Prabhat Patnaik (The Telegraph / Feb 2023)
● 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)

Supreme Court seeks guidelines for search and seizure of electronic devices

Supreme Court seeks guidelines for search and seizure of electronic devices

Poster by #bakeryprasad

Supreme Court calls for norms on seizure of devices by probe agencies

08/11/2023

Hindustan Times / by Utkarsh Anand

A 2-judge bench of the apex court is hearing a petition demanding regulation of the police’s power to search or seize digital devices.
… The issue of seizure of digital devices like phones and laptops has become a flashpoint in the Bhima-Koregaon caste violence case with the accused alleging that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) planted evidence on the laptop of Rona Wilson.
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‘Incomplete reports’, ‘financial toll’: The burden of digital device seizures on journalists, outlets

08/11/2023

Newslaundry / by Tanishka Sodhi

Be it the searches at NewsClick, BBC, the Wire, or at the homes of journalists in several states over the last few years, the seizures of journalist’s digital devices have often underlined two issues – pertaining to journalistic privilege and the fundamental right to privacy.
… The Bhima Koregaon case is another prominent example in which activists have alleged violation of due process.
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Supreme Court seeks guidelines for search and seizure of electronic devices

07/11/2023

The Leaflet / by Sarah Thanawala

The development gains significance in light of the crackdown on media such as Newsclick and the letter written by several journalists groups to the Chief Justice of India against it.
On Tuesday, a two-judge Bench of the Supreme Court batted for having guidelines in place to govern the search and seizure of phones or other digital devices belonging to media personnel.
Read more

Also read:
● NewsClick raids: Indian law has few safeguards when electronic devices are seized (Scroll.in / Oct 2023)
● Fabricating Evidence Against Life and Liberty: Tampering with Fr. Stan Swamy’s computer and its implications for Bhima Koregaon case (Mumbai Rises to Save Democracy / Dec 2022)
● Incriminating document found in Fr. Stan Swamy’s computer ‘planted’; similar tampering found in other Bhima Koregaon accused: Reports American forensic firm (The Leaflet / Dec 2022)
● Leaked Data Shows Surveillance Net in Elgar Parishad Case May Have Crossed a Line (The Wire / July 2021)

Since Evidence Tampering Not Ruled Out, Shoma Sen and Rona Wilson Want Chargesheets Quashed

Since Evidence Tampering Not Ruled Out, Shoma Sen and Rona Wilson Want Chargesheets Quashed

Since Evidence Tampering Not Ruled Out, Accused Want Chargesheets Quashed

19/10/2023

The Wire / by The Wire Staff

Shoma Sen and Rona Wilson petitioned the Bombay high court alleging that norms were violated in searching and seizing electronic documents from them. 
Shoma Sen and Rona Wilson, named as accused in the Elgar Parishad case, have alleged in their petition before the Bombay high court that the prosecution violated the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, Indian Evidence Act, 1872 and Information Technology Act, 2000 in searching and seizing allegedly incriminating electronic documents from them.
They urged the division Bench of Justice A.S. Gadkari and Justice Sharmila U. Deshmukh on Monday, October 17, to quash the chargesheets against them.
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Bombay High Court hears petition seeking quashing of chargesheets against Shoma Sen and Rona Wilson

17/10/2023

The Leaflet / by Sarah Thanawala

Senior advocate Anand Grover, appearing on behalf of Sen and Wilson, argued that the prosecution violated principles of Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, Indian Evidence Act, 1872 and Information Technology Act, 2000 in searching and seizing allegedly incriminating electronic documents.
On Monday, the Bombay High Court heard pleas by women’s rights activist and academic Shoma Sen, and activist and researcher Rona Wilson for quashing chargesheets filed against them.
… The matter is posted for further hearing on October 23.
Read more

Lawyer Raises Concerns Over Security Of Devices Seized In Bhima Koregaon Investigation: Report

17/10/2023

MediaNama / by Aarathi Ganesan

Lawyer Anand Grover argued that simply sealing electronic devices upon seizure did not ensure that the data within had been secured. He also noted that electronic devices could be easily tampered with, without any indication.
The electronic evidence recovered from activists Shoma Sen and Rona Wilson in the Bhima Koregaon investigation was improperly secured upon seizure, advocate Anand Grover alleged before the Bombay High Court yesterday, The Leaflet reported.
Read more

Also read:
● Incriminating evidence planted in computers: The Trojan solved the Bhima Koregaon case! (Anchored Narratives / Jan 2023)
● Cyber Attackers Who Targeted Rona Wilson Could Have Been Engaged by Same Entity: Report (The Wire / Feb 2022)

NewsClick Raids and Arrests: Demolishing the Myth of the ‘Urban Naxal’ Nomenclature

NewsClick Raids and Arrests: Demolishing the Myth of the ‘Urban Naxal’ Nomenclature


Girish Karnad, Sep 2018 #MeTooUrbanNaxal

The Wire / Ajay K. Mehra

The current crackdown is transparently part of the same politics that resulted in the invention of ambiguous phrases like ‘tukde-tukde gang’ and ‘Urban Naxal’.
The search and seizure operation at the residences of 46 journalists associated with NewsClick and the arrests of two people are transparently part of the same politics that resulted in the invention of the still ambiguous phrases ‘tukde-tukde gang’ and ‘Urban Naxal’.
A new category of dissenters, deprecated as anti-nationals, is ‘Urban Naxal’.  This came into use since the Elgar Parishad case in 2018. A meeting of human rights activists, lawyers and others in Pune on December 31, 2017, known as the Elgar Parishad and meant to commemorate the bicentenary of the Bhima Koregaon battle, turned into a pretext to round up a number of ‘leftist’ activists under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).
Read more

Also read:
● From ‘tukde tukde gang’ to ‘urban Naxal’: How media trials enable the government to stifle dissent (Scroll.in / Sep 2018)

NIA claims fact-finding conducted by Gautam Navlakha was sponsored to further terrorist activities

NIA claims fact-finding conducted by Gautam Navlakha was sponsored to further terrorist activities

poster campaign 2020

by Bar & Bench – Live Threads / @lawbarandbench (Aug 9, 2023)
NIA arguments in bail hearing of Bhima Koregaon accused Gautam Navlakha will continue on August 24, 2023.

NIA claims fact-finding conducted by Gautam Navlakha was sponsored to further terrorist activities

09/08/2023

The Leaflet / by Sarah Thanawala

The National Investigation Agency has also claimed that the perception of resistance from members of the banned organisation Communist Party of India (Maoist) against Navlakha was deliberately created. 
On Wednesday, a division Bench of the Bombay High Court comprising Justices A.S. Gadkari and Shivkumar Dige continued hearing the bail application filed by journalist and human rights activist Gautam Navlakha.
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NIA emphasises charges of conspiracy and common intention to further terrorist activities against Gautam Navlakha

08/08/2023

The Leaflet / by Sarah Thanawala

The National Investigation Agency argued that the individual roles of the accused persons in the Bhima Koregaon case should not be looked into in isolation from the larger conspiracy.
On Monday, a division Bench of the Bombay High Court comprising Justices A.S. Gadkari and Shivkumar Dige continued hearing the bail application filed by journalist and human rights activist Gautam Navlakha.
Read more

Gautam Navlakha part of urban naxal movement which arranges manpower, funds for rural naxal struggle: NIA to Bombay High Court

08/08/2023

Bar & Bench / by Neha Joshi

Responding to Navlakha’s claims that he was not involved in any violent acts for seeking bail in the Bhima Koregaon case of 2018, ASG Devang Vyas argued that Navlakha was assigned a role in the larger conspiracy.
Human rights activist and journalist Gautam Navlakha was part of an urban movement to arrange for logistics for the rural naxal movement, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) told the Bombay High Court on Monday while opposing Navlakha’s bail application.
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Probe agency opposes Gautam Navlakha’s bail plea, says ‘Part of Urban Naxals’

08/08/2023

India Today / by Vidya

The National Investigation Agency opposed the bail plea of Elgar Parishad case accused, Gautam Navlakha, in the Bombay High Court.
Opposing the bail plea of Gautam Navlakha, an accused in the Elgar Parishad case, the National Investigation Agency told the Bombay High Court that Navlakha was part of “Urban Naxals” to arrange logistics for Naxal movements in rural areas.
Read more

Also read:
● ‘Urban Naxal’ is a label to terrorise intellectuals: Prabhat Patnaik (The Telegraph / Feb 2023)
● From Anti-National to Urban Naxal: The Trajectory of Dissent in India – How the term Urban Naxal came to being (Newsclick / Sep 2018)

Gautam Navlakha

Gautam Navlakha has a tremendous archive of writings from the 1980s to the present, documented by The Friends of Gautam Navlakha.
To read some of his recent writings and a full list of his articles with Economic & Political Weekly, the NewsClick newsportal and the platform Sanhati visit: Gautam Navlakha – Journalist, Human Rights Defender, Political Prisoner

Jesuit priest accused of terrorism was victim of digital hacking

Jesuit priest accused of terrorism was victim of digital hacking

Illustration by #bakeryprasad

Independent Catholic News / by John McManus

Today, Jesuit Missions, the international mission and development office of the Jesuits in Britain, along with the international Xavier Network, are calling on the Indian Government to clear Fr Stan’s name, especially in light of new evidence which proves that he was systematically targeted during a four-year campaign, during which time falsified evidence was planted on the priest’s computer.
Read more

Also read:
● Fabricating Evidence Against Life and Liberty: Tampering with Fr. Stan Swamy’s computer and its implications for Bhima Koregaon case (Mumbai Rises to Save Democracy / Dec 2022)
● Leaked Data Shows Surveillance Net in Elgar Parishad Case May Have Crossed a Line (The Wire / July 2021)

The Secret Of The Sealed Cover!

The Secret Of The Sealed Cover!

Rising Kashmir / by Dr. Swati Jindal Garg

Even though there is a specific law that defines sealed cover jurisprudence, the concept also finds a mention in Rule 7 of order XIII of the Supreme Court Rules and Section 123 of the Indian Evidence Act of 1872
… In the Bhima Koregaon case also, wherein activists were arrested under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, the Supreme Court had relied on information submitted by the Maharashtra police in a sealed cover. In the case of activist Gautam Navlakha, the police had submitted a sealed envelope including information recovered from the electronic devices seized from the activist. 
Read more

Also read:
● NIA highlights Gautam Navlakha’s ‘Pakistani connect’ to oppose bail in Elgar Parishad case (India Today / Feb 2023)

‘Urban Naxal’ is a label to terrorise intellectuals: Prabhat Patnaik

‘Urban Naxal’ is a label to terrorise intellectuals: Prabhat Patnaik

Poster campaign, Jun 2020

The Telegraph / by Subhoranjan Dasgupta

Neo-fascist regime working towards ‘destruction of thought’
The government is reportedly planning a crackdown against “Maoist intellectuals operating front organisations in the cities in the guise of NGOs and civil rights organisations”, months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for the eradication of “Naxalism”, whether “the ones with guns or the ones with pens”.
But who are these so-called “Urban Naxals” and why does the government consider them so dangerous? Social scientist PRABHAT PATNAIK explains in this interview with SUBHORANJAN DASGUPTA, professor of human sciences.
Read more

Also read:
● From Anti-National to Urban Naxal: The Trajectory of Dissent in India – How the term Urban Naxal came to being (Newsclick / Sep 2018)