en | 26:22 min | 2019
By The Polis Project
Suchitra Vijayan speaks to lawyer Darshna Mitra about the UAPA act, its long and violent history of weaponizing National security concerns to crush dissent, and what the recent amendments mean for the future of India as a constitutional republic.
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Scroll.in / by Scroll Staff
The Bombay High Court on Friday reserved its verdict on activist Gautam Navlakha’s plea seeking to quash a first information report filed against him for alleged links with Maoists. Navlakha was among five activists arrested last August in connection with the Elgar Parishad and Bhima Koregaon case.
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Mumbai Mirror / by Invitation Chitranshul Sinha
The Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, 1967 (UAPA) was enacted by the Indira Gandhi government as a statute to prevent, curb and punish any ‘unlawful activity’. Such activities were, loosely speaking, seditious activities or such other activities against the territorial integrity and sovereignty of India.
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Firstpost / by Debobrat Ghose
Home Minister Amit Shah gave a strong message in the Lok Sabha on Thursday: Under the garb of ‘social activism’ and ‘ideological movement’, Maoism — especially ‘urban Naxalism’ and violence against common man, villagers and tribals under its pretext — won’t be tolerated at any cost.
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Pune Mirror / by Archana More
Two months after the Supreme Court upheld the Bombay High Court order granting him bail, Konnath Muralidharan, … was released from Yerwada Central Jail on Tuesday. In a free-wheeling conversation with Mirror, the man who was arrested by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad on May 8, 2019, along with along with his alleged courier — Ismail Hamzaa (29), delved into country’s judicial system, his stay at Yerwada and experience with the jail administration, the new-found obsession with “urban Naxalism” and the government’s efforts to silence his voice.
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Scroll.in / by Scroll Staff
The Pune Police on Wednesday told the Bombay High Court that activist Gautam Navlakha and the Maoist groups he was allegedly associated with were in touch with militant group Hizbul Mujahideen and Kashmiri separatist leaders, PTI reported. The court was hearing Navlakha’s plea seeking to quash a first information report filed against him for alleged links with Maoist.
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The Times of India / by TNN
Nagpur: Justifying detention of Naxal sympathizers Vara Vara Rao and lawyer Surendra Gadling for their alleged role in a case of arson wherein around 80 vehicles were torched at Surjagarh mining site in Gadchiroli in 2016, Maharashtra government on Tuesday informed that more names of Maoists and their sympathisers could be revealed as the probe progresses.
In an affidavit submitted to the Nagpur bench of Bombay high court, the government justified the extension of investigation period and the duo’s detention due to non-receipt of e-mails from Yahoo, the web services provider company.
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The Leaflet / by Nihalsing B Rathod
Arrested over a year ago, activists still await a bail hearing
The Bhima Koregaon case is perhaps one of the most discussed cases in which every known violation of the law and procedure by the prosecution has been deployed to deny justice to the arrested activists.
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Sabrangindia.in / by Deborah Grey
A common characteristic of right wing supremacists in India appears to be their extremely limited and rather vapid imagination. This is best illustrated in a booklet published by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The booklet is an out and out smear campaign against some of India’s most respected intellectuals and human rights activists. However this sinister agenda is driven by a rather banal set of stories.
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The Wire / by Sukanya Shantha
The defence is alleging that this is the police’s latest tactic to delay the bail hearings and ensure that the rights activists stay in jail.
Mumbai: Over a year since the nine arrested lawyers and activists in the Bhima Koregaon case filed for bail, and after 60-odd hearings on their applications, the court has now stalled the hearings for an indefinite time. The proceedings will resume only after the prosecution hands over electronic evidence, which they have been relying on all along, to the accused persons.
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