Persecution – Page 2 – free them all

Hany Babu permitted to travel to meet mother, court allows law enforcement agencies to monitor his whereabouts

15/02/2026 Asha

Hany Babu permitted to travel to Kerala to meet mother, court allows law enforcement agencies to monitor his whereabouts

15/02/2026

The Indian Express / by Sadaf Modak

A special court has permitted Delhi University professor and Elgaar Parishad accused Hany Babu to travel to Kerala on humanitarian grounds, while allowing the NIA to monitor his whereabouts.
Noting that meeting his 80-year-old mother after nearly six years in jail is a ‘just consideration’, a special court permitted Hany Babu, an associate professor at Delhi University and accused in the Elgaar Parishad case, to travel to Kerala.
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NIA court allows Hany Babu to visit elderly mother in Kerala

15/02/2026

Hindustan Times / by Vikrant Jha

The court however said that he would have to return before the first Monday of March to mark his attendance at the Mumbai NIA office
A special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court has allowed former Delhi University professor and civil rights activist Hany Babu to travel to his house in Kerala to meet his 80-year-old mother. The court however said that he would have to return before the first Monday of March to mark his attendance at the Mumbai NIA office.
Read more

by Sukanya Shantha (Feb 14, 2026):

The state may have kept Prof. Hany Babu behind bars for nearly 6 years and his bail conditions now confine him to Mumbai.
Yet his students’ love for their beloved teacher remain as strong as ever. Today, a rose was quietly left outside his office at DU.
Happy Valentine’s Day 🙂

Also read:
▪ Me Coming Out Alive Is A Miracle: Hany Babu, Bhima-Koregaon Accused, On Life Behind Bars (Outlook / Jan 2026)
▪ After five years behind bars, Bombay High Court grants bail to Prof. Hany Babu (CJP / Dec 2025)
▪ Bhima Koregaon accused asked to share phone location while on bail. Is this constitutional? (Scroll.in / Jul 2023)

What Women’s Jail Diaries Reveal About Society / For many Indian women jail sets them free

09/02/2026 Asha

For many Indian women jail sets them free. ‘Home had become a prison’

13/02/2026

The Print / by Sakhi Mehra

Seema Azad’s Unsilenced and From Phansi Yard by activist-lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj were the topic of discussion at Delhi’s Press Club last week. Both books were born of incarceration.
In prison, for all its cruelty, one can still breathe—unlike many other spaces in society. That was the unsettling truth that became the centre of a book discussion at the Press Club of India on 7 February. Writers, activists, and scholars gathered to talk about incarceration as a lived reality.
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Beyond Bars and Charges: What Women’s Jail Diaries Reveal About Society

09/02/2026

Outlook / by Mrinalini Dhyani

At a discussion on women’s prison writings, the conversation centred on memoirs by two women political prisoners, Unsilenced: The Jail Diary of an Activist by Seema Azad and Phansi Yard by Sudha Bharadwaj which brought together feminist historian Uma Chakravarti, activist-journalist Seema Azad, legal scholar Shailza Sharma, and researcher Mary, among others.
Incarceration in India is not an exception but a long-standing social reality, one that has shaped women’s lives across generations, from the years immediately after Independence to the present moment of prolonged undertrial detention. This was the central argument that emerged at a discussion on women’s prison writings held at the Press Club of India on Saturday evening.
Read more

▪ From Phansi Yard: My Year with the Women of Yerawada

Author: Sudha Bhardwaj
Publishing Date: Oct 2023
Publisher: Juggernaut
Pages: 216
Read more/order

Also read:
▪ Book Excerpt | Unsilenced: The Jail Diary Of An Activist, By Seema Azad (Outlook / Jan 2026)

▪ The Cell and the Soul – A Prison Memoir

Author: Anand Teltumbde
Publishing Date: Sep 2025
Publisher: Bloomsbury India
Pages: 256
Read more/order

▪ The Feared – Conversations with Eleven Political Prisoners

Author: Neeta Kolhatkar
Publishing Date: Dec 2024
Publisher: S&S India
Pages: 272
Read more/order

▪ Reading The Marginal Spaces Of Prison: Incarceration And Women Political Prisoners (Feminism India / Nov 2024)

▪ 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

Elgaar Parishad-Bhima Koregaon case: 16 accused, 1 dead, 1 in custody, 14 out on bail. The bail diaries

04/02/2026 Asha

The Indian Express / by Sadaf Modak, Vineet Bhalla, Apurva Vishwanath

Eight years after the Elgaar Parishad-Bhima Koregaon case, with charges not framed and the trial yet to start, 14 of the accused are out on bail, though under stringent conditions that restrict their movement and interaction with the outside world. The Indian Express speaks to each of the 14 on life after bail.
“I have been in jail longer than most of my clients,” 57-year-old lawyer Surendra Gadling often jokes to his family.
Of the 16 arrested in the 2018 Elgaar Parishad-Bhima Koregaon case, Gadling remains the only accused in custody, with his bail plea pending in the Bombay High Court. While 84-year-old Father Stan Swamy passed away in custody in 2021, the remaining 14 are out on bail.
Read more

Also read/watch:
▪ Voices From Prison Series: Of Lives Stolen For Dissent (Outlook / Jan 2026)
▪ Bail for Sagar Gorkhe and Ramesh Gaichor, five years and five months after arrest (SabrangIndia / Jan 2026)
▪ In Surendra Gadling’s case, adjournment becomes the verdict (Frontline / Aug 2025)
▪ THE BK-16 PRISON DIARIES SERIES – AN INTRODUCTION (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)

From the Belly of the Prison: Anand Teltumbde’s The Cell and the Soul

31/01/2026 Asha

Credits: Drawing by Arun Ferreira / The Polis Project

The Indian Express / by Shah Alam Khan

Anand Teltumbde’s The Cell and the Soul shows how incarceration, historically meant to improve a person’s character, today has become the State’s tool for revenge
The arrest of intellectuals as a fall out of the Bhima-Koregaon (BK) violence of 2018 has given us an array of essays, books and poetry that speaks volumes of the beauty of creativity within the precincts of prison. One such book is The Cell and the Soul by Anand Teltumbde.
In her path breaking treatise, Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003), American activist Angela Davis argues that despite its classist, racist and patriarchal foundations, prisons have invisibly crept into our ‘routine’ consciousness as a prerequisite of modern society. Angela wrote this for the largely privatised and brutally capitalist American prison system. The Cell and the Soul shows the Indian prison system is not very different.
Read more

▪ The Cell and the Soul – A Prison Memoir

Author: Anand Teltumbde
Publishing Date: Sep 2025
Publisher: Bloomsbury India
Pages: 256
Read more/order

Also read:
▪ Voices From Prison: Of Lives Stolen For Dissent (Outlook / Jan 2026)
▪ No mosquito nets, no medicine—Teltumbde recounts life in prison in ‘The Cell and the Soul’ (The Print / Nov 2025)
▪ Taloja Jail: Lives Fading in Silence Behind Iron Walls (Outlook | by Sudhir Dhawale | Sep 2025)
▪ I saw firsthand how callous prison officials and their negligence led to Stan Swamy’s death (Scroll.in | by Arun Ferreira | Jul 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)
▪ BK-16 Prison Diaries: Sagar Gorkhe on his battle to survive Taloja jail’s brutality (The Polis Project | by Sagar Gorkhe | Feb 2025)
▪ Ramesh Gaichor on the Elgar prisoners’ defiance of the neo-Peshwai prison system (The Polis Project | by Ramesh Gaichor | Sep 2024)
▪ INTRODUCING THE BK-16 PRISON DIARIES SERIES (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)

▪ The Feared – Conversations with Eleven Political Prisoners

Author: Neeta Kolhatkar
Publishing Date: Dec 2024
Publisher: S&S India
Pages: 272
Read more/order

▪ From Phansi Yard: My Year with the Women of Yerawada

Author: Sudha Bhardwaj
Publishing Date: Oct 2023
Publisher: Juggernaut
Pages: 216
Read more/order

Sagar Gorkhe and Ramesh Gaichor Walk Out on Bail

27/01/2026 Asha

Sagar Gorkhe and Ramesh Gaichor after being released from Taloja Jail. Jan 27, 2026.

shared by Maktoob/@MaktoobMedia (Jan 28, 2026):
Bhima Koregaon case: Kabir Kala Manch activists Sagar Gorkhe, Ramesh Gaichor walk out of jail after 1,970 days
Kabir Kala Manch activists Sagar Gorkhe and Ramesh Gaichor walked out of jail after being granted bail in the Bhima Koregaon case, ending nearly five and a half years of incarceration. The two had been lodged in prison since 7 September 2020 under the draconian UAPA.

shared by Anish (Jan 27, 2026):
Sagar Gorkhe and Ramesh Gaichor released
Welcome Comrades.
#ReleaseAllPoliticalPrisoners

‘Lost Five and a Half Years, But Dignity Still Intact’: Sagar Gorkhe, Ramesh Gaichor Walk Out on Bail

27/01/2026

The Wire / by Sukanya Shantha

Released from jail on Tuesday, both activists lamented the continuing incarceration of their fellow Elgar Parishad accused Surendra Gadling.
The most challenging phase of incarceration, according to Sagar Gorkhe, one of the activists accused in the Elgar Parishad case, is the “agonising wait” for release after bail has been granted.
Gorkhe and fellow accused Ramesh Gaichor were granted bail by the Bombay high court on January 23. A division bench comprising Justices A.S. Gadkari and S.C. Chandak allowed their appeals against the special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court’s earlier rejection of bail, primarily on grounds of parity with other co-accused who had already been released, as well as their prolonged detention.
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Bail for Sagar Gorkhe and Ramesh Gaichor, five years and five months after arrest

23/01/2026

SabrangIndia / by SabrangIndia

Bhima Koregaon Case: Bombay High Court granted bail to Sagar Gorkhe, Ramesh Gaichor With Friday (January 23) order, only lawyer Surendra Gadling would continue to remain in jail in this matter that has incarcerated several with the FIR being filed in early 2018
The Bombay High Court on Friday, January 23, granted bail to Bhima Koregaon accused and Kabir Kala Manch artistes Sagar Gorkhe and Ramesh Gaichor in connection with the 2018 Bhima Koregaon violence case. It was a bench of Justices AS Gadkari and SC Chandak that allowed the appeals filed by Gorkhe and Gaichor against the February 2022 order of the special NIA court in Mumbai, which had rejected their bail pleas in the matter.
Read more

Also watch:
▪ Video statement by Sagar Gorkhe & Ramesh Gaichor

by Sukanya Shantha/@sukanyashantha (Sep 7, 2020):
Kabir Kala Manch activists Sagar Gorkhe & Ramesh Gaichor have alleged that they’re being forced by the NIA to give confessional statements claiming they are a part of Maoist organization. The two refused, and were arrested today.
(This video was recorded on Sep 5.)

Watch video

Voices From Prison series | Book Excerpt: Colours Of The Cage: A Prison Memoir, By Arun Ferreira

25/01/2026 Asha

Voices From Prison | Book Excerpt: Colours Of The Cage: A Prison Memoir, By Arun Ferreira

25/01/2026

Outlook / by Arun Ferreira

In May 2007, human rights activist Arun Ferreira was arrested by the Nagpur Police on charges of being a Naxalite. This book is a stark and unsparing account of the nearly five years that he spent in jail.

Excerpt
I was afraid they’d kill me. Thus far, there was nothing official about my detention. They hadn’t shown me a warrant, nor had I been taken to a police station. I feared that the police could murder me and pretend that I’d been killed in an encounter. I’d read about many situations in which the police claimed to have had no option but to open fire when suspects they were attempting to arrest had resisted. I knew that the National Human Rights Commission had noted thirty-one cases of fake encounter killings in Maharashtra alone in the previous five years. The physical torture, though painful, was relatively tame compared to this prospect.
Read more

▪ Colours Of The Cage

Author: Arun Ferreira
Publishing Date: Sep 2014
Publisher: Aleph Book Company
Pages: 176

In May 2007, human rights activist Arun Ferreira was picked up from the railway station and arrested by the Nagpur Police on charges of being a Naxalite. Over the next few months, he was charged with more crimes—of criminal conspiracy, murder, possession of arms and rioting, among others—and incarcerated in one of the most notorious prisons in Maharashtra, the Nagpur Central Jail.

This is an account of the nearly five years that Ferreira was imprisoned.

Voices From Prison | Photo Feature: Art Drawn Inside The Carceral State, By Arun Ferreira

25/01/2026

Outlook / Outlook News Desk, curated by Arun Ferreira

Drawn from inside prison walls, Arun Ferreira’s artworks document incarceration not as an abstract idea but as a lived, grinding reality.
Cell Alone: I, me and myself. If only sleep would silently ship me to some sociable shore. Photo: Art work by Arun Ferreira
Drawn from inside prison walls, Arun Ferreira’s artworks document incarceration not as an abstract idea but as a lived, grinding reality. A Mumbai-based lawyer, activist and trained cartoonist, Ferreira has long been involved in social and political movements, beginning with his student years at St. Xavier’s College.
Read more

Also read/watch:
▪ Voices From Prison Series: Of Lives Stolen For Dissent (Outlook / Jan 2026)
▪ Supreme Court grants bail to Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira, with tethers (The Leaflet / Jul 2023)

▪ Video: Arun Ferreira speaks about Life in an Indian Prison

en | 12:51 min | 2014
Watch video

▪ The Cell and the Soul – A Prison Memoir

Author: Anand Teltumbde
Publishing Date: Sep 2025
Publisher: Bloomsbury India
Pages: 256
Read more/order

▪ The Feared – Conversations with Eleven Political Prisoners

Author: Neeta Kolhatkar
Publishing Date: Dec 2024
Publisher: S&S India
Pages: 272
Read more/order

▪ THE BK-16 PRISON DIARIES SERIES – AN INTRODUCTION (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)

▪ From Phansi Yard: My Year with the Women of Yerawada

Author: Sudha Bhardwaj
Publishing Date: Oct 2023
Publisher: Juggernaut
Pages: 216
Read more/order

Bail for Sagar Gorkhe and Ramesh Gaichor, five years and five months after arrest in Bhima Koregaon case

23/01/2026 Asha

Sagar Gorkhe, Ramesh Gaichor. Poster by #bakeryprasad

Bail for Sagar Gorkhe and Ramesh Gaichor, five years and five months after arrest

23/01/2026

SabrangIndia / by SabrangIndia

Bombay High Court Grants Bail To Ramesh Gaichor & Sagar Gorkhe After 5 Yrs In Jail

23/01/2026

Live Law / by Narsi Benwal

The Bombay High Court on Friday granted bail to Ramesh Gaichor and Sagar Gorkhe, both arrested since 2020 for their roles in the Elgar Parishad – Bhima Koregaon case.
A division bench of Justice Ajay Gadkari and Justice Shyam Chandak granted bail on the ground of long incarceration.
A detailed order granting them bail is yet to be made available.
Read more

Seven Years On, Bail Finally For Gorkhe & Gaichor In Bhima Koregaon Case

23/01/2026

Outlook / by Priyanka Tupe

The Bombay high court on Friday granted bail to Sagar Gorkhe & Ramesh Gaichor in the Bhima Koregaon case. Total 16 accused were arrested in the case, of which only lawyer Surendra Gadling remains in jail now, denied bail.
The Bombay High Court on Friday granted interim bail to Sagar Gorkhe and Ramesh Gaichor in the Bhima Koregaon case, noting the prolonged incarceration of the two accused even as trial in the matter has not commenced after seven years. The activists have been accused of having links with banned Maoist organisations.
Read more

Bombay HC Grants Bail To Activists Sagar Gorkhe & Ramesh Gaichor

23/01/2026

Free Press Journal / by Urvi Mahajani

The Bombay High Court granted bail to activists Sagar Gorkhe and Ramesh Gaichor in the Elgar Parishad Maoist links case, citing parity with other accused already released. Arrested in 2020, they must furnish bail bonds and report monthly to the NIA. The case involves alleged provocative speeches at a 2017 event that sparked violence in Maharashtra. Trial delays cited.
The Bombay High Court on Friday granted bail to two accused in the Elgar Parishad Maoist links case — activists Sagar Gorkhe and Ramesh Gaichor — on grounds of parity.
Read more

Why Kabir Kala Manch artists Gorkhe and Gaichor, granted bail by HC, were arrested by NIA for ‘Maoist links’

23/01/2026

The Indian Express / by Chandan Haygunde

An offence was lodged against some Elgaar Parishad organisers at Vishrambag police station in Pune in January 2018.
More than five years after being arrested in the Elgaar Parishad case for alleged Maoist links, Ramesh Gaichor (41) and Sagar Gorkhe (37), both members of the Pune based cultural group Kabir Kala Manch (KKM), were given bail by the Bombay High Court (HC) on Friday.
The KKM is among the outfits that organised the Elgaar Parishad conclave at the Shaniwar Wada in Pune city on December 31, 2017, to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the battle of Koregaon Bhima. The following day, widespread violence was reported in Koregaon Bhima area in Pune district, in which one person died while several others were left injured.
Read more

Also read:
▪ How Kabir Kala Manch, the anti-caste cultural troupe, challenges the hierarchical social order (Scroll.in / Jul 2024)
▪ Kabir Kala Manch: A History of Revolutionary Singing and State Repression (ritimo / April 2022)

Incarceration As Politics: A Timeline Of Political Prisoners In Independent India

23/01/2026 Asha

Incarceration As Politics: A Timeline Of Political Prisoners In Independent India

23/01/2026

Outlook / by Saher Hiba Khan

From the Anti-Hindi Agitations to UAPA arrests, India’s history shows how dissent is criminalised across decades and governments
Across countries and political systems, incarceration has always been used as a tool to control the masses. It has been justified through shifting legal terms such as national security, public order, and counter-terrorism.
While the laws change, the logic remains the same. It has time and again proved that dissent against any government will be treated as a threat.
Read more

Voices From Prison: Of Lives Stolen For Dissent

20/01/2026

Outlook / by Outlook News Desk

Outlook’s February 1 issue, Thou Shalt Not Dissent, shines a light on the lives of political prisoners who were slapped with anti-terrorism charges and continue to face long trials and curbing of rights.
…
In Outlook’s February 1 issue, Thou Shalt Not Dissent, first-person accounts of political activists who were slapped with anti-terrorism charges under different political regimes, explore life behind bars, the trauma, sights and sounds of a world bereft of freedom, normalcy and reason. Weaved with the accounts are stories of individuals who carry the burden of incarceration like a tumour on the face, afraid to cover it, so it doesn’t chafe, and hesitant to let it free, so it does not translate into their only identity.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Voices From Prison | A Legacy Of Detention: Weaponisation Of PDA, TADA, NSA And UAPA Laws Since Independence (Outlook / Jan 2026)

NIA court denies Mahesh Raut permission to travel to Kerala for medical treatment

23/01/2026 Asha

NIA court denies Mahesh Raut permission to travel to Kerala for medical treatment

23/01/2026

Hindustan Times / by Vikrant Jha

The court said adequate treatment options are available in Mumbai and permitting him to travel to another state would dilute territorial restrictions imposed by the Bombay High Court
A special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court has rejected an application filed by Bhima Koregaon case accused Mahesh Raut seeking permission to travel to Kerala for medical treatment. The court said adequate treatment options are available in Mumbai and permitting him to travel to another state would dilute territorial restrictions imposed by the Bombay High Court.
Read more

Mahesh Raut | A Broken Prison System Is In Dire Need Of Critical Care

22/01/2026

Outlook / by Mahesh Raut

Mahesh Raut, the youngest accused in the Bhima Koregaon case, was granted interim bail on medical grounds. Many prisoners have no hope.
What constitutes freedom? What does it constitute for the person who is confined or for the one who comes out of jail, only to get entangled in another web of chains; some similar, but for others, different from what they experienced behind bars. In a prison, your identity is reduced to just a number. You are dehumanised at the whims of authorities and burdened by numerous hurdles and difficulties to secure bail. Many are not able to come out of prison even after securing bail due to financial constraints. All these factors take a toll on the physical and mental health of prisoners.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Bhima Koregaon Case: Mahesh Raut, youngest accused, granted bail by the Bombay HC! (SabrangIndia / Sep 2023)

The 2016 Surjagarh arson case, the Elgaar link, and why the Supreme Court is intervening now

21/01/2026 Asha

Explained: The 2016 Surjagarh arson case, the Elgaar link, and why the Supreme Court is intervening now

22/01/2026

The Indian Express / by Sadaf Modak

Surendra Gadling has been judicially detained for seven years without a trial. He is accused in the 2016 Surjagarh arson case and the 2018 Elgaar Parishad case.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday (January 21) said that it would order to expedite proceedings against lawyer-activist Surendra Gadling in the 2016 Surjagarh arson case. Gadling sought bail in the case, and said that he has been behind bars for seven years without a trial since his arrest in 2019.
Gadling, lodged in a Mumbai jail, is also in judicial custody in the Elgaar Parishad case since 2018; the trial in the case is yet to begin.
Read more

‘No Judge Or Prosecutor In NIA Court, 7 Yrs Custody Without Trial’: Surendra Gadling To Supreme Court In Bail Plea

21/01/2026

Live Law / by Debby Jain

The Court adjourned the matter saying it will ascertain from the HC Chief Justice whether a judge is there in the NIA court.
The Supreme Court today adjourned lawyer-activist Surendra Gadling’s bail plea in the 2016 Gadchiroli arson case by a month, while granting time for document inspection. A bench of Justices JK Maheshwari and Vijay Bishnoi heard the matter and said that it would ascertain from the Bombay High Court Chief Justice whether any judge is posted in the concerned NIA court.
Read more

7 years without trial: Supreme Court defers Surendra Gadling’s bail plea in Surajgarh arson case again

21/01/2026

Bar & Bench / by Ritwik Choudhury

“There is no case against me on merits. I am in jail for 7 years! What is this country coming to?” Gadling’s counsel told the Court today.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday deferred by one more month the bail application filed by lawyer-activist Surendra Gadling in connection with the 2016 Surajgarh arson case.
Read more

Also read:
▪ 2016 Gadchiroli Arson Case: SC Demands Improved Virtual Conferencing In Surendra Gadling’s Trial (Free Press Journal / Dec 2025)
▪ Supreme Court gives Maharashtra final chance to file affidavit on Surendra Gadling’s plea in 2016 Surjagarh mine arson case (The Leaflet / Oct 2025)
▪ 2016 Surjagarh arson case: Advocate Gadling can appear in person to argue his discharge plea, says court (The Indian Express / Oct 2025)
▪ Elgar Parishad case: HC questions Gadling’s plea, says accused can’t choose probe agency (Hindustan Times / Sep 2025)
▪ Supreme Court Seeks Explanation on Delayed Trial in 2016 Arson Case (Devdiscourse / Sep 2025)
▪ 6 yrs, no charges framed – Surendra Gadling stuck in trial limbo in 2016 Surajgarh arson case (The Print / Sep 2025)
▪ In Surendra Gadling’s case, adjournment becomes the verdict (Frontline / Aug 2025)
▪ Surendra Gadling’s Computer Was Attacked, Incriminating Documents Planted: Arsenal Consulting (The Wire / July 2021)