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Category: Persecution

BREAKING: Supreme Court grants bail to Shoma Sen / SC sets strict bail conditions

BREAKING: Supreme Court grants bail to Shoma Sen / SC sets strict bail conditions

No Ground To Believe Accusations Against Shoma Sen Are Prima Facie True: Supreme Court [read judgment]

05/04/2024

Live Law / by Gyanvi Khanna

The Court observed that the materials collected by the NIA only reveal her attempt to encourage women to join the struggle for a “new democratic revolution” and showed no attempt to commit any “terrorist act”.
While granting bail to Shoma Sen, nearly six years after her arrest in the Bhima Koregaon case, the Supreme Court on Friday (April 5) raised prima facie doubts over the tenability of the allegations against her regarding the commission of offences under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act 1967 (UAPA).
Read more
Read/ download the judgment

BREAKING | Supreme Court Grants Bail To Shoma Sen In Bhima Koregaon Case

05/04/2024

Live Law / by Gyanvi Khanna

The Supreme Court (on April 05) granted bail to former Nagpur University professor Shoma Sen who is booked under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act 1967 (UAPA) for alleged Maoist links in connection with the Bhima Koregaon case.
She was arrested on June 6, 2018, and has been under custody since then, awaiting trial.
Read more

Thread by Live Law / @LiveLawIndia (Apr 5):
The bail conditions that will be imposed by the Special Court will be inclusive of the following conditions:

1. Sen shall not leave the State of Maharashtra;
2. She will surrender her passport, if she possesses one with the Special Court, during her bail period;
3. She is also required to inform her residential address to the officer of the NIA;
4. She is allowed to use only one mobile number during her bail, and the same shall be informed the officer of the NIA;
5. She shall also ensure that her mobile remains active and charged around the clock;
6. During the bail period, she shall have the GPS of her mobile phone active throughout the day, and her phone will be paired with the investigating officer of the NIA;
7. She will report to the station house officer, within whose jurisdiction she will reside, once every fortnight.

In the event there is any breach of such condition or any other condition imposed by the Special Court independently, it will be open for the prosecution to seek cancellation of bail granted to Sen before the Special Court only with any reference to this (Supreme Court)


Share Gps live location with nia 24×7: Supreme Court bail conditions for Shoma Sen [read judgment]

06/04/2024

Bar & Bench / by Debayan Roy

Pertinently, another bench of the Supreme Court itself had previously raised doubts with regard to bail condition asking accused to share their real time location with the prosecuting agencies.
The Supreme Court while granting bail to the Dalit and women’s rights activist Shoma Sen in the Bhima Koregaon violence case imposed a unique set of conditions to enable access of her real time location to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) [Shoma Kanti Sen vs State of Maharashtra and Anr].
Read more
Read judgment

Supreme Court grants bail to Shoma Sen in Bhima Koregaon case

05/04/2024

Bar & Bench / by Debayan Roy

The Court passed the order after noting that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) did not oppose her bail and hence, the stringent conditions for bail under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act would not apply.
A bench of Justices Aniruddha Bose and Augustine George Masih passed the order after noting that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) did not oppose her bail and hence, the stringent conditions for bail under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) would not apply.
Read more


Allegations of terrorism against Bhima Koregaon accused Shoma Sen prima facie untrue: Supreme Court

06/04/2024

Scroll.in / by Scroll Staff

The bench remarked that no evidence had been placed before it to suggest that the former professor is a member of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist).
The Supreme Court on Friday, while granting bail to former Nagpur University professor Shoma Sen in the Bhima Koregaon case, observed that the allegations of terrorism against her are prima facie untrue, reported Live Law.
Read more


Breaking | Supreme Court Grants Bail to Shoma Sen, in Jail for 6 Years

05/04/2024

The Wire / by The Wire Staff

An apex court bench took into account her prolonged incarceration, the delay in trial starting and the nature of the accusations.
The Supreme Court has granted bail to scholar and activist Shoma Sen who has been jailed for close to six years under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act in the Elgar Parishad case.
Sen is based in Nagpur and was arrested on June 6, 2018 by the Pune Police. She has been in custody since then. The National Investigation Agency took over the case in the meantime. It is yet to go to trial.
Read more


Also read:
After Opposing Bail for Years, NIA Now Says it Doesn’t Need Custody of Shoma Sen (The Wire / March 2024)
“Hopefully waiting” writes Shoma Sen from prison (InSAF India / Jul 2023)

Side-effects of conscience: An account of prison medical care

Side-effects of conscience: An account of prison medical care

Vernon Gonsalves at jail. Drawing by Arun Ferreira.

The Leaflet / by Vernon Gonsalves

Accused in the Bhima Koregaon case and released on bail by the Supreme Court last year after having spent five years in prison without a trial, Vernon Gonsalves narrates a sordid tale of pathetic medicare in Indian jails. 

I have spent almost eleven years in detention, with considerable periods in the most populated prisons of Maharashtra. My first incarceration from 2007 to 2013 began shortly after I turned fifty. I had a second stint from 2018 to 2023, while I was in my sixties.
Read more


Also read:
‘No Material’ to Demonstrate Terror Link, Yet Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Ferriera Spent 5 Years in Jail [Read judgment] (The Wire / Jul 2023)
Caged birds and prison songs: In chorus, Stan Swamy and the Bhima Koregaon accused kept hope alive (Scroll.in | by Vernon Gonsalves | Jul 2023)
Relatives of BK16 Flag Prison Authorities’ ‘Criminal Negligence’ and Deteriorating Health of Undertrials (Newsclick / Sep 2022)
Jailers’ apathy? Political prisoners’ right to life in India is ‘almost non-existent’ (Countercurrents / Sep 2022)
How the system broke Stan Swamy: A cell mate recalls the activist’s last days in prison (Scroll.in | by Arun Ferreira | Aug 2021)

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.
Read more


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.”
Read more


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.
Read more

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?
Read more


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.
Read more


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.
Read more


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)

Hany Babu defends bail plea in Supreme Court

Hany Babu defends bail plea in Supreme Court

Campaign poster, 2021

by Live Law / @LiveLawIndia (March 20):
Bhima Koregaon accused Hany Babu defends bail plea in #SupremeCourt, arguing that the only evidence against him was that he raised awareness and legal defence on behalf of recently-acquitted GN Saibaba.
#BhimaKoregaon #SupremeCourtofIndia

Bench ultimately declines to hear the matter today after time is sought on behalf of the NIA to file a counter-affidavit.
Two week is granted to the agency to file its response.


Also read:
Supreme Court Issues Notice To NIA On Professor Hany Babu’s Bail Plea (Live Law / Jan 2024)

▪ Bombay High Court Refuses Bail To DU Professor Hany Babu

(Live Law / Sep 2022)
Delhi University Professor Hany Babu mobilising rallies and co-ordinating the defence of convicted professor GN Saibaba was not just helping a fellow academic, but prima facie following a leftist handbook, the Bombay High Court said in its order refusing him bail.
Read more

‘From Phansi Yard’ by Sudha Bharadwaj wins Best Author in Non-Fiction @AutHER Awards

‘From Phansi Yard’ by Sudha Bharadwaj wins Best Author in Non-Fiction @AutHER Awards

by Jayati Ghosh @Jayati1609 (March 18):

Absolutely delighted to learn that Sudha Bharadwaj has deservedly won the best author award for non fiction with her sensitive, insightful and illuminating book on the lives of women in an Indian prison.

Here’s a typically thoughtful and compassionate response from #SudhaBharadwaj after news of the award:



by AutHER Awards – Creating Lasting Impressions / @AutherAwards (March 17):
A round of applause for Sudha Bharadwaj, winner of the Non-Fiction category at #AutherAwards. Her remarkable book ‘From Phansi Yard: My Year With The Women Of Yerawada’ has made a profound impact on the jury’s hearts
by Juggernautbooks / @juggernautbooks (March 17):
‘From Phansi Yard’ by Sudha Bharadwaj wind Best Author in the Non Fiction Category for @AutherAwards
A heart congratulations to Sudha Bharadwaj!

by Chiki Sarkar / @Chikisarkar (March 17):
Thrilled that Sudha Bharadwaj wins best non fiction in the ⁦@AutherAwards awards.
We are so proud to be publishing this wonderful book ⁦@juggernautbooks


From Phansi Yard: My Year with the Women of Yerawada

Author: Sudha Bhardwaj
Publisher: Juggernaut
Pages: 216
Order book


Also read/watch:

▪ From Phansi Yard: My Year With The Women Of Yerawada, by Sudha Bharadwaj (Excerpt)

Artice 14 / by Samar Halarnkar / Sudha Bharadwaj | Nov 2023
Arrested on 28 August 2018, human rights lawyer, teacher and IIT graduate Sudha Bharadwaj is among 16 accused in the Bhima-Koregaon case, charged under  sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), 1860, and the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), 1967…

EXCERPT
On 1 November, I mark my second birthday in custody. Diwali was in late October this year, and Shoma Di has saved a bit of her Diwali faral (snacks, in Marathi) as a treat for me. She gives me a beautiful card with a hand-drawn Sudoku on the front and a ballerina ‘dancing away to her freedom’ on the inside. It’s an ode to my Sudoku mania.
Read more

▪ Video: Barkha Dutt speaks to Sudha Bharadwaj on her book ‘From Phansi Yard’

Mojo Story | Nov 2023


en | 21:03min | 2023
Barkha Dutt speaks to Trade Unionist, activist and lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj on her book ‘From Phansi Yard’. The book records stories of her time in jail. She is out on bail after 3 years in the 2018 Bhima-Koregaon violence case.
Sudha speaks about her days in jail and how her time in a women’s prison made her aware of the gender gap in legal aid. “Many women are jailed- because their husband committed some crime and are now absconding- they don’t even know about the crime,” she says.
Sudha further says that she lives in the house of a friend, as she “can’t afford rent”. Trade unions support her, she does legal cases for them, she says.
Watch video

▪ A Cage with a View: Under-trial life in an Indian jail

National Herald | by Sudha Bharadwaj | Oct 2023
The jottings that make up this book were my way of coping with incarceration. Some prisoners pray, some weep, some just put their heads down and work themselves weary. Some fight defiantly every inch of the way, some are inveterate grumblers, some spew gossip. Some read the newspaper from cover to cover, some shower love on children, some laugh at themselves and at others.
I watched through the bars, and I wrote.

Read more

After Opposing Bail for Years, NIA Now Says it Doesn’t Need Custody of Shoma Sen

After Opposing Bail for Years, NIA Now Says it Doesn’t Need Custody of Shoma Sen

Poster campaign, June 2023

After Opposing Bail for Years, NIA Now Says it Doesn’t Need Custody of Shoma Sen

18/03/2024

The Wire / by Sukanya Shantha

Sixty-five-year-old Sen, who suffers with hypertension and arthritis among other ailments, has moved bail applications before the trial court and the apex court on several occasions. Her bail application, however, came to be rejected each time.
After keeping Shoma Sen, a former professor at Nagpur University, in prison for close to six years, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has now stated that they no longer need her custody. The agency, having completed investigation in the Elgar Parishad case, has already filed the chargesheet. But all along, and as recently as in December 2023, the agency had vehemently opposed her bail application both in the lower court and the Supreme Court.
Read more


‘Don’t Need Shoma Sen In Custody Anymore’: NIA Tells SC; Oral Arguments In Bail Plea Concluded

16/03/2024

Live Law / by Awstika Das

In a significant development, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) made a surprising admission in the Supreme Court this week regarding former Nagpur University professor and Bhima Koregaon-accused Shoma Sen.
Read more


NIA tells SC it does not need custody of accused Shoma Sen anymore

16/03/2024

Scroll.in / by Scroll Staff

The court said it would examine the seriousness of the allegations against the former Nagpur University professor and then take a decision.
The National Investigation Agency informed the Supreme Court this week that it no longer requires the custody of former Nagpur University professor Shoma Sen, who is among those accused in the Bhima Koregaon case, Live Law reported.
Read more


Also read:
‘No Evidence Establishes UAPA Case, Links With Banned Groups’: Bhima-Koregaon Accused Shoma Sen Argues For Bail In Supreme Court (Live Law / Feb 2024)

“Hopefully waiting” writes Shoma Sen from prison (InSAF India / Jul 2023)

Gautam Navlakha Disputes NIA’s Claim For House Arrest Surveillance Expenses

Gautam Navlakha Disputes NIA’s Claim For House Arrest Surveillance Expenses

Gautam Navlakha

Gautam Navlakha Disputes NIA’s Claim For House Arrest Surveillance Expenses

07/03/2024

Live Law / by Awstika Das

In a courtroom exchange that unfolded at the Supreme Court on Thursday (March 7), Bhima Koregaon-accused Gautam Navlakha’s counsel, Senior Advocate Nitya Ramakrishnan, accused the National Investigation Agency (NIA) of engaging in what she described as ‘extortion’ by demanding an excessive amount from the human rights activist towards meeting his house arrest expenses.
… Ultimately, the judges intervened, reasoning that the dispute over the amount claimed by the National Investigation Agency would have to be adjudicated in a proper hearing. Accordingly, they directed the matter to be adjourned to a non-miscellaneous day in April. The stay on the Bombay High Court’s bail order will continue until then.
Read more


NIA asks Gautam Navlakha to pay Rs 1.64 crore towards the cost of his house arrest

07/03/2024

Scroll.in / by Scroll Staff

The human rights activist’s counsel called the National Investigation Agency’s claim ‘extortion’.
The National Investigation Agency told the Supreme Court on Thursday that human rights activist Gautam Navlakha is liable to pay Rs 1.64 crore as the cost of his security during his house arrest in the Bhima Koregaon case, Live Law reported.
In response, Navlakha’s counsel Nitya Ramakrishnan accused the central counter-terrorism agency of “extortion”.
Read more


Also read:
The first week in the new year repeats the same old story of procedural grind (The Leaflet / Jan 2024)
‘Ominous portents’: Why High Court staying its own bail orders in Bhima Koregaon case is troubling (Scroll.in / Dec 2023)

Supreme Court Extends Until March High Court’s Stay On Bail Granted To Gautam Navlakha

Supreme Court Extends Until March High Court’s Stay On Bail Granted To Gautam Navlakha

Gautam Navlakha

Live Law / by Awstika Das

The Supreme Court on Monday (February 12) extended until March the stay on the bail granted to journalist and activist Gautam Navlakha in connection with the Bhima Koregaon case, following a petition filed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
Read more


Also read:
‘Ominous portents’: Why High Court staying its own bail orders in Bhima Koregaon case is troubling (Scroll.in / Dec 2023)

‘From Phansi Yard’: Sudha Bharadwaj’s writings from Yerawada Jail reflect on paradoxes of freedom

‘From Phansi Yard’: Sudha Bharadwaj’s writings from Yerawada Jail reflect on paradoxes of freedom

Sudha Bharadwaj[/caption]

Scroll.in / Sharmila Purkayashsta

Bharadwaj and her co-accsued, Shoma Sen, were lodged in solitary cells for almost fifteen months.
It is a truism that if you’re impoverished and incarcerated then you’re as good as forgotten, because life behind bars replicates existing inequalities, and those without resources are also the most unequal in jail.
Read more


From Phansi Yard: My Year with the Women of Yerawada

Author: Sudha Bhardwaj
Publisher: Juggernaut
Pages: 216
Order


Also read:

■ Sudha Bharadwaj speaks – A Life in Law and Activism


Publisher: Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL)
Edition: January 2021
Language: English
Sudha Bharadwaj’s interview by: Darshana Mitra and Santanu Chakraborty
Paperback: 316 pages
Access a free PDF copy of the book here:
Sudha_Bharadwaj_speaks (2,1 MB)

No Evidence Establishes UAPA Case, Links With Banned Groups’: Shoma Sen Argues For Bail In SC

No Evidence Establishes UAPA Case, Links With Banned Groups’: Shoma Sen Argues For Bail In SC

Live Law / by Awstika Das

Former Nagpur University professor and Bhima Koregaon-accused Shoma Sen defended her bail plea in the Supreme Court on Thursday by alleging a lack of evidence connecting her to the case under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, or establishing her purported links with the proscribed Communist Party of India (Maoist).
… The Supreme Court is slated to continue hearing Sen’s bail plea on Thursday, February 15.
Read more


Also read:
Shoma Sen’s Bail Hearing in SC Adjourned Yet Again, Until January 10 (NewsClick / Dec 2023)
Supreme Court quotes Watali judgment in Shoma Sen’s bail application (The Leaflet / Dec 2023)