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How The Indian Prison System Denies Basic Freedoms, Rights And Dignity To Political Prisoners

How The Indian Prison System Denies Basic Freedoms, Rights And Dignity To Political Prisoners

poster by @/bakeryprasad

The Polis Project / by Bhavya Dore and Sukhada Tatke

In the summer of May 2022, relegated to his oblong-shaped high-security anda cell, GN Saibaba was frequently thirsty. The Delhi University professor, lodged in Nagpur Central Jail at the time, has post-polio paralysis in both legs. He had also lost the use of his left hand after a nerve injury he said he sustained during his arrest. As temperatures reached 45 degrees outside, Saibaba needed help every time he wanted a drink—his wheelchair did not reach the corner of the cell where the pot of water was kept.
… In September 2022, Anand Teltumbde, a human-rights activist and writer, approached the National Investigation Agency court with a plea for mosquito nets. “Taloja central jail is infested with mosquitoes and the mosquito repellent ointments and incense sticks are hardly of any use,” he wrote in his application
Read more

Also read:
▪ INTRODUCING THE BK-16 PRISON DIARIES SERIES (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ Relatives of BK16 Flag Prison Authorities’ ‘Criminal Negligence’ and Deteriorating Health of Undertrials (Newsclick / Sep 2022)
▪ Punished without trial: How India’s political prisoners are being denied basic rights in jail (Scroll.in / Aug 2022)
▪ Hunger Strike unto death against the harassment from Taloja Central Jail’s apathetic administration (By Sagar Gorkhe / May 2022)

BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: RUPALI JADHAV TRAVELS TEN HOURS FOR FLEETING EXCHANGES WITH JYOTI JAGTAP

BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: RUPALI JADHAV TRAVELS TEN HOURS FOR FLEETING EXCHANGES WITH JYOTI JAGTAP

To mark six years of the arbitrary arrests and imprisonment of political dissidents in the Bhima Koregaon case, The Polis Project is publishing a series of writings by the BK-16, and their families, friends and partners. By describing various aspects of the past six years, the series offers a glimpse into the BK-16’s lives inside prison, as well as the struggles of their loved ones outside. Each piece in the series is complemented by Arun Ferreira’s striking and evocative artwork.

THE POLIS PROJECT / BY RUPALI JADHAV

This is the story of that day, when Jyoti was supposed to meet us, but did not show up. Two other members of Kabir Kala Manch, Ramesh and Sagar, had already been arrested in connection with the Bhima Koregaon case, and the NIA had summoned Jyoti to Mumbai for questioning for the third time. The next day, on 8 September 2020, Jyoti was supposed to meet me and some of our sathis, or friends, at Sarasbaug in Pune. We waited for her for a long time. Her phone was unreachable. I became anxious because she is usually very punctual and disciplined, and I told the others that she never takes this long. Only after I started searching for her did I receive the call. “We are calling from Pune ATS. Jyoti Jagtap has been arrested. You can come here to collect her keys and belongings.”
Read more

Also read:
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: JENNY ROWENA ON THE FEAR OF PRISONS AND THE BRAHMINICAL SYSTEM BEHIND IT (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: ANAND TELTUMBDE REFLECTS ON HIS ARREST AND INCARCERATION (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: STORIES OF LOVE, MURDER AND CHILD MARRIAGE FROM SHOMA SEN’S YEARS IN PRISONS (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: ARUN FERREIRA ON THE FARCE AND TRAGEDY OF THE PANDEMIC IN PRISON (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: VERNON GONSALVES ON THE STRUGGLE TO READ AND WRITE BEHIND BARS (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ INTRODUCING THE BK-16 PRISON DIARIES SERIES (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)

BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: JENNY ROWENA ON THE FEAR OF PRISONS AND THE BRAHMINICAL SYSTEM BEHIND IT

BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: JENNY ROWENA ON THE FEAR OF PRISONS AND THE BRAHMINICAL SYSTEM BEHIND IT

To mark six years of the arbitrary arrests and imprisonment of political dissidents in the Bhima Koregaon case, The Polis Project is publishing a series of writings by the BK-16, and their families, friends and partners. By describing various aspects of the past six years, the series offers a glimpse into the BK-16’s lives inside prison, as well as the struggles of their loved ones outside. Each piece in the series is complemented by Arun Ferreira’s striking and evocative artwork.

The Polis Project / by Jenny Rowena

As a space that takes away our liberties, marked by deep deprivation and suffering, the prison often gets framed as the point at which the liveable modern life ends. The fear of prisons, then, becomes all-pervading, with language itself constantly pointing to it as a dead end. Thus, for the ordinary person, the police and the prison system evoke extreme anxiety, and they design their lives to evade any encounters with it. Yet, those who come face to face with this system observe not an end, but the continuing flow of life inside, behind massive, impenetrable walls, even as their family and friends navigate a completely new reality outside. For academics like Hany Babu, the twelfth person incarcerated in the Bhima Koregaon case, who was active in social justice projects in the university space, the prison also offers a glimpse into the stark structural inequalities of Indian society and the many resistances against them.
Read more

Also read:
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: ANAND TELTUMBDE REFLECTS ON HIS ARREST AND INCARCERATION (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: STORIES OF LOVE, MURDER AND CHILD MARRIAGE FROM SHOMA SEN’S YEARS IN PRISONS (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: ARUN FERREIRA ON THE FARCE AND TRAGEDY OF THE PANDEMIC IN PRISON (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: VERNON GONSALVES ON THE STRUGGLE TO READ AND WRITE BEHIND BARS (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ INTRODUCING THE BK-16 PRISON DIARIES SERIES (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)

Why Mahesh Raut needed an interim bail on top of a regular bail to attend his grandmother’s funeral

Why Mahesh Raut needed an interim bail on top of a regular bail to attend his grandmother’s funeral

CASR campaign June 2024

Why Mahesh Raut needed an interim bail on top of a regular bail to attend his grandmother’s funeral

23/06/2024

The Leaflet / by The Leaflet

Are the legislature, through laws such as the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, and the judiciary, through the evolving jurisprudence of stays on bail, in perfect synchrony to deny life and liberty to the citizenry?
On Friday, the Supreme Court granted interim bail of two weeks to Bhima Koregaon case accused Mahesh Raut to attend rituals in connection with the death of his grandmother.
A Bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice S.V.N. Bhatti passed an Order to this effect even as the National Investigating Agency (NIA) strongly opposed the application.
Read more

Relief for activist as Supreme Court allows for interim bail

21/06/2024

Sabrangindia / by Sabrangindia

NIA argued against bail, court considers exceptional circumstances.
The Supreme Court today granted interim bail to Mahesh Raut, a key accused in the Bhima Koregaon case, allowing him to attend the ceremonies related to the last rites of his grandmother. The bench, comprising Justices Vikram Nath and SVN Bhatti, heard the matter and ruled in favour of Raut’s request for a temporary release.
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Supreme Court Grants 2-Week Interim Bail To Bhima Koregaon Case Accused Mahesh Raut To Attend Grandmother’s Post Funeral Rituals

21/06/2024

Live Law / by Debby Jain

The Supreme Court today granted interim bail to Bhima Koregaon case accused Mahesh Raut for two weeks in order to attend ceremonies related to last rites of his grandmother.
The vacation bench of Justices Vikram Nath and SVN Bhatti granted him interim bail from June 26 to July 10.
Read more

Supreme Court grants interim bail to Mahesh Raut to attend grandmother’s final rites

21/06/2024

Bar and Banch / by Debayan Roy

Raut, one of the accused in the Bhima Koregaon violence case, was arrested in June 2018 and has been in custody since.
The Supreme Court on Friday granted two weeks of interim bail to Mahesh Raut, who is an accused in the Bhima Koregaon case, to allow him attend the ceremonies relating to the last rites of his grandmother [National Investigation Agency v. Mahesh Sitaram Raut and anr].
Read more

Also watch/read:
▪ Book Excerpt | Intellectual Insurgency And Mahesh Raut (The Wire / June 2024)
▪ Video: Why has Adivasi land rights scholar-activist Mahesh Raut not been released yet from prison even though he was given bail in 2023?

en | 1:35 | 2024
by InSAF India / @IndInsaf (May 23, 2024). Watch video
▪ ‘Ominous portents’: Why High Court staying its own bail orders in Bhima Koregaon case is troubling (Scroll.in / Dec 2023)
▪ In Jail for 5 Years, Activist Mahesh Raut Gets Bail in Elgar Parishad Case (The Wire / Sep 2023)

BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: ANAND TELTUMBDE REFLECTS ON HIS ARREST AND INCARCERATION

BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: ANAND TELTUMBDE REFLECTS ON HIS ARREST AND INCARCERATION

To mark six years of the arbitrary arrests and imprisonment of political dissidents in the Bhima Koregaon case, The Polis Project is publishing a series of writings by the BK-16, and their families, friends and partners. By describing various aspects of the past six years, the series offers a glimpse into the BK-16’s lives inside prison, as well as the struggles of their loved ones outside. Each piece in the series is complemented by Arun Ferreira’s striking and evocative artwork.

The Polis Project / by Anand Teltumbde

Though I have been active in the civil-rights movement for over four decades, contributing to defence of the states’ hapless victims, I never imagined that I myself would land up in jail one day as those we defended. Even after the Pune police arrested five activists in connection with the violence at Bhima-Koregaon on 1 January 2018; even after the cops read out a letter purportedly written by a Maoist functionary to me, as they recovered from the hard disk of one of the arrestees and obviously implicated me into the crime; even after they raided my house in the campus of Goa Institute of Management in our absence—I thought they might not arrest me.
Read more

Also read:
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: STORIES OF LOVE, MURDER AND CHILD MARRIAGE FROM SHOMA SEN’S YEARS IN PRISONS (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: ARUN FERREIRA ON THE FARCE AND TRAGEDY OF THE PANDEMIC IN PRISON (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: VERNON GONSALVES ON THE STRUGGLE TO READ AND WRITE BEHIND BARS (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ INTRODUCING THE BK-16 PRISON DIARIES SERIES (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)

‘Every time I stepped out, the camera was on’: Love and resilience in captivity with Gautam Navlakha

‘Every time I stepped out, the camera was on’: Love and resilience in captivity with Gautam Navlakha

Sabha and Gautam. Oct 2018

Scroll.in / by Mekhala Saran

Sahba Husain relinquished her freedom to spend nearly two years in house arrest in a makeshift room with her partner of 30 years.
What makes a 71-year-old woman relinquish her freedom, in the city that has been home for 54 years, and voluntarily move into confinement?
“One date can overturn your life,” Sahba Husain chuckles over a phone call with me. For her, that date is August 28, 2018, when the house she shared with her partner Gautam Navlakha in Delhi was raided.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Gautam Navlakha’s letter on release from custody (PUDR / May 2024)

BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: STORIES OF LOVE, MURDER AND CHILD MARRIAGE FROM SHOMA SEN’S YEARS IN PRISONS

BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: STORIES OF LOVE, MURDER AND CHILD MARRIAGE FROM SHOMA SEN’S YEARS IN PRISONS

To mark six years of the arbitrary arrests and imprisonment of political dissidents in the Bhima Koregaon case, The Polis Project is publishing a series of writings by the BK-16, and their families, friends and partners. By describing various aspects of the past six years, the series offers a glimpse into the BK-16’s lives inside prison, as well as the struggles of their loved ones outside. Each piece in the series is complemented by Arun Ferreira’s striking and evocative artwork.

BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: STORIES OF LOVE, MURDER AND CHILD MARRIAGE FROM SHOMA SEN’S YEARS IN PRISONS

16/06/2024

The Polis Project / by Shoma Sen

While we were in jail, Himanta Biswa Sarma, the chief minister of Assam, initiated a campaign (read: crackdown) against child marriage. Instead of formulating programmes to educate the community and facilitate social reforms, he used law enforcement to viciously subjugate the poor, minorities and rural residents, to superimpose modernism through fear and repression.
A large number of women living in prison had been married off between the ages of 12 and 14, and were being held for different crimes, from theft and murder to trafficking drugs and children.
Read more

Also read:
▪BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: ARUN FERREIRA ON THE FARCE AND TRAGEDY OF THE PANDEMIC IN PRISON (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: VERNON GONSALVES ON THE STRUGGLE TO READ AND WRITE BEHIND BARS (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪INTRODUCING THE BK-16 PRISON DIARIES SERIES (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)

BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: ARUN FERREIRA ON THE FARCE AND TRAGEDY OF THE PANDEMIC IN PRISON

BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: ARUN FERREIRA ON THE FARCE AND TRAGEDY OF THE PANDEMIC IN PRISON

To mark six years of the arbitrary arrests and imprisonment of political dissidents in the Bhima Koregaon case, The Polis Project is publishing a series of writings by the BK-16, and their families, friends and partners. By describing various aspects of the past six years, the series offers a glimpse into the BK-16’s lives inside prison, as well as the struggles of their loved ones outside. Each piece in the series is complemented by Arun Ferreira’s striking and evocative artwork.

BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: ARUN FERREIRA ON THE FARCE AND TRAGEDY OF THE PANDEMIC IN PRISON

14/06/2024

THE POLIS PROJECT / ARUN FERREIRA

The first wave of COVID-19 took us all by surprise, universally. We were caught unawares, and our response was clumsy and faltered, often searching for solutions that now appear ridiculous. It was no different in prison, but what made things even worse was the compounded consequences of the farcical implementation of sincere solutions, and the sincere implementation of farcical solutions. Prison authorities did not display any intention of adequately dealing with the pandemic, but were eager to present a façade of an efficient administrative response on official records with a miniscule number of COVID-19 cases.
Read more

Also read:
▪BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: VERNON GONSALVES ON THE STRUGGLE TO READ AND WRITE BEHIND BARS (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪INTRODUCING THE BK-16 PRISON DIARIES SERIES (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)

BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: VERNON GONSALVES ON THE STRUGGLE TO READ AND WRITE BEHIND BARS

BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: VERNON GONSALVES ON THE STRUGGLE TO READ AND WRITE BEHIND BARS

To mark six years of the arbitrary arrests and imprisonment of political dissidents in the Bhima Koregaon case, The Polis Project is publishing a series of writings by the BK-16, and their families, friends and partners. By describing various aspects of the past six years, the series offers a glimpse into the BK-16’s lives inside prison, as well as the struggles of their loved ones outside. Each piece in the series is complemented by Arun Ferreira’s striking and evocative artwork.

BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: VERNON GONSALVES ON THE STRUGGLE TO READ AND WRITE BEHIND BARS

14/06/2024

THE POLIS PROJECT / VERNON GONSALVES

A prison peer-view that I cherish is a drawing by the artist Arun Ferreira, when we were fellow inmates of Nagpur Central Prison in 2011. He shows me sitting at the gate of my cell, writing-pad in hand, and writing—or rather, trying to write. It’s aptly titled, “Some Sophisticated Self-Deception.”
Perhaps I like it because it’s an image that I, like many other political prisoners, wanted as a prison self-image—someone who’s not wasting away his years behind bars. Someone who has some output, even if “only” intellectual output.
Read more

INTRODUCING THE BK-16 PRISON DIARIES SERIES

13/06/2024

THE POLIS PROJECT / By THE POLIS PROJECT

On 1 January 1818, a small British battalion mainly comprising Dalit soldiers from the oppressed Mahar caste defeated an army of dominant-caste Peshwas at Koregaon. The battle gained a legendary status, representing a victory not just in Bhima Koregaon, but against caste injustices perpetrated by the Peshwas. The Mahar community celebrates the anniversary as a festival called “Valour Day,” and many make an annual pilgrimage to an obelisk at the site that memorialises the battle.
Read more

Supreme Court seeks NIA’s stand on activist Mahesh Raut plea seeking interim bail

Supreme Court seeks NIA’s stand on activist Mahesh Raut plea seeking interim bail

CASR campaign June 2024

Mahesh Raut Approaches Supreme Court For Interim Bail To Attend Ceremonies Related To Grandmother’s Funeral

14/06/2024

Live Law / by Anmol Kaur Bawa

Bhima Koregaon case accused Mahesh Raut has approached the Supreme Court to seek interim bail for attending the ceremonies relating to the last rites of his grandmother.
The vacation bench of Justices PV Sanjay Kumar and AG Masih which was hearing the matter has adjourned the case till 21st June at the request of the National Investigating Agency (NIA).
Read more

Supreme Court seeks NIA’s stand on activist Mahesh Raut plea seeking interim bail

14/06/2024

The Telegraph / by pti

A vacation bench of Justices Sanjay Kumar and Augustine George Masih posted the matter for hearing on June 21
The Supreme Court on Friday asked the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to take instructions on a plea filed by activist Mahesh Raut, an accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, seeking interim bail to attend rituals following the death of his grandmother.
Read more

SC to hear plea of activist seeking interim bail on June 21

15/04/2024

Legal News / by ANI

The Supreme Court on Friday said it would hear on June 21 a plea filed by activist Mahesh Raut, an accused in the Bhima-Koregaon case, seeking interim bail to attend rituals following the death of his grandmother.
Read more

Also read:
▪ NIA court refuses temporary bail to Mahesh Raut (Hindustan Times / June 2024)
▪ ‘Ominous portents’: Why High Court staying its own bail orders in Bhima Koregaon case is troubling (Scroll.in / Dec 2023)
▪ Bhima Koregaon Case: Mahesh Raut, youngest accused, granted bail by the Bombay HC! (SabrangIndia / Sep 2023)