Browsed by
Category: Persecution

Anand Teltumbde moves Bombay High Court for temporary bail after brother’s death

Anand Teltumbde moves Bombay High Court for temporary bail after brother’s death

Bombay High Court adjourns bail plea of Anand Teltumbde to February 16

11/02/2022

Indialegallive.com / by India Legal

The Bombay High Court adjourned till February 16, the hearing in the temporary bail application sought by activist Anand Teltumbde, an accused in the Elgaar Parishad case, to visit his nonagenarian mother.
A Division Bench of Justice S.S. Shinde and Justice N.R. Borkar on Friday passed the order after Senior Counsel Mihir Desai said the trial court had rejected Teltumbde’s application on the ground that his substantive/regular bail plea was pending before the High Court, before which he can seek relief temporary bail as well.
Read more

Prof Anand Teltumbde Seeks Interim Bail To Visit Nonagenarian Mother Following His Brother’s Death In An Encounter

11/02/2022

Live Law / by Sharmeen Hakim

Professor Anand Teltumbde has approached the Bombay High Court seeking interim bail to visit his 92-year-old mother for 14 days following his brother – Milind’s – death in an encounter.
A division bench led by Justice SS Shinde sought details of Teltumbde’s interim application and listed the matter for hearing on Wednesday, February 16.
Read more

Anand Teltumbde moves Bombay High Court for temporary bail after brother’s death

11/02/2022

Bar & Bench / by Neha Joshi

Teltumbde’s brother, Milind Teltumbde was killed in a gun-battle that took place in Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra on November 13, 2021.
Anand Teltumbde has approached the Bombay High Court seeking interim bail to visit his mother and family, after the recent death of his brother Milind Teltumbde, also a wanted-accused in the 2018 case.
Milind Teltumbde was killed in a gun-battle that took place in Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra on November 13, 2021.
Read more

Activist Rona Wilson was targeted by two separate hacker groups, says report

Activist Rona Wilson was targeted by two separate hacker groups, says report

Rona Wilson Targeted in 10-Year Cyber Espionage Effort by Two Groups: Report

11/02/2022

The Wire / by The Wire Staff

Findings by US experts under the cybersecurity firm SentinelOne reveal that Wilson was targeted in a nearly decade-long effort – a time frame significantly longer than earlier realised.
A new report has found that activist Rona Wilson – incarcerated over what the Pune Police and NIA believe are his connections to the Elgar Parishad case – was targeted by two groups who took up cyber crime campaigns against him.
Read more

Indian activist charged with terrorism was targeted by hackers linked to prominent cyber espionage attacks, new report finds

10/02/2022

The Washington Post / by Niha Masih and Gerry Shih

In early 2021, India was jolted by revelations that a jailed human rights activist and vocal government critic was targeted by hackers who planted incriminating evidence on his laptop before he was arrested on terrorism charges.
Now, a year later, a report by U.S. experts says the activist, Rona Wilson, was targeted by two separate groups, including one group that has been linked to widely documented cyberespionage campaigns against military targets in China and Pakistan, India’s top foreign adversaries.
Read more

Activist Rona Wilson was targeted by two separate hacker groups, says report

10/02/2022

Scroll.in / by Scroll Staff

One of the groups has reportedly been linked to cyberespionage efforts against military targets in China and Pakistan.
Activist Rona Wilson, who has been named as an accused person in the Bhima Koregaon case, was targeted by two separate groups of hackers before he was arrested, The Washington Post reported on Thursday.
Read more

Vernon Gonsalves, Varavara Rao & Arun Ferreira File Review Application, Seek Default Bail

Vernon Gonsalves, Varavara Rao & Arun Ferreira File Review Application, Seek Default Bail

Live Law / by Sharmeen Hakim

The Bombay High Court has directed the National Investigation Agency to respond to a review application filed by three accused in the Bhima Koregaon – Elgar Parishad Case seeking bail and factual corrections in the order refusing them default bail.
A division bench led by Justice SS Shinde gave the agency two weeks to file their reply and posted the application filed by Vernon Gonsalves, Varavara and Arun Ferreira thereafter.
Read more

Seized Devices Of Seven Accused To Be Submitted To Pegasus Committee

Seized Devices Of Seven Accused To Be Submitted To Pegasus Committee

Court permits NIA to submit seized mobile phones to the SC-appointed Committee probing Pegasus allegations

08/02/2022

The Leaflet / by The Leaflet

A special National Investigation Agency [NIA] Court in Mumbai, on Tuesday, allowed the application filed by the anti-terror agency to submit the seized mobile phones of the seven accused in the Bhima Koregaon case to the Supreme Court-appointed Techincal Committee which is probing the Pegasus spyware scandal.
Read more

Seized Mobile Devices Of Seven Accused To Be Submitted To Pegasus Committee To Check For Possible Snooping

08/02/2022

Live Law / by Sharmee Hakim

Mobile devices of the seven accused in the Bhima Koregaon – Elgar Parishad Case will be submitted to the Supreme Court-appointed Technical Committee (TC) probing allegations of snooping using Pegasus spyware, after the Special Court allowed the National Investigation Agency’s plea.
Read more

Also read:
● Elgar Parishad Accused, Their Lawyers Write to SC’s Committee on Pegasus Spyware Targeting (The Wire / Jan 2022)
● Leaked Data Shows Surveillance Net in Elgar Parishad Case May Have Crossed a Line (The Wire / July 2021)

In Covid-hit India, where are the women? In Byculla Women’s Jail, awaiting trial, awaiting death

In Covid-hit India, where are the women? In Byculla Women’s Jail, awaiting trial, awaiting death


Drawing by Arun Ferreira

Women in and Beyond the Global / by Dan Moshenberg

When Covid hit India, the reports, and for some expectation, were that the State would consider pandemic measures, such as the need for social distancing, and would reduce the incarcerated populations. To no one’s great surprise, that did not happen generally, and in particular it did not happen in women’s jails and prisons. For example, the state of Maharashtra has 60 central and district jails. Of them, one, Byculla Women’s Jail, is the only one dedicated for women and children, but that doesn’t mean the conditions are in any way better. Byculla Women’s Jail has always been an overcrowded hellhole for women and children.
Read more

Also read:
● Sudha Bharadwaj: My greatest strength were prison inmates (Rediff.com / Feb 2022)
● Another COVID-19 Outbreak in Byculla Prison Highlights Lessons That Haven’t Been Learnt (The Wire / Sep 2021)
● Coronavirus | 38 inmates of Byculla jail test positive (The Hindu / April 2021)

Opposition MPs urge Narendra Modi to free jailed activist / Full statement

Opposition MPs urge Narendra Modi to free jailed activist / Full statement

MPs write to PM, asking for immediate release of all arrested in Bhima Koregaon case

01/02/2022

By CPI (M)

click to enlarge

Bhima Koregaon case: Opposition MPs urge Narendra Modi to free jailed activists

07/02/2022

Scroll.in / by Scroll Staff

The MPs alleged that evidence was planted against the accused persons.
Members of several Opposition parties have written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking immediate release of academicians, lawyers and activists detained in the Bhima Koregaon case.
Read more

Grant Bail to Activists Arrested in Elgar Parishad Case, MPs Say In Letter to Modi

07/02/2022

The Wire / by The Wire Staff

The letter, signed by 20 MPs, expresses “deep concern at the media and cyber-forensic expert reports indicating that Indian citizens have been attacked with illegal cyber weapons”
Read more

Also read:
● Arsenal Report No. 4 Confirms Pegasus Attack on IPhone of Rona Wilson, Key BK Accused (PUCL / Dec 2021)

Bombay HC extends Varavara Rao’s bail till February 28

Bombay HC extends Varavara Rao’s bail till February 28


VV Rao, Feb 2021, leaving hospital

The Indian Express / by Express News Service

The Bombay High Court on Friday extended till February 28 the time allotted to Elgaar Parishad case accused P Varavara Rao to return to jail.
The octogenarian had been granted medical bail for six months on February 22, last year, and was later allowed to extend it till February 5, 2022.
Read more

‘The State snatched away my time with my daughter’ / ‘My greatest strength were prison inmates’

‘The State snatched away my time with my daughter’ / ‘My greatest strength were prison inmates’

Part III: ‘The State snatched away my time with my daughter’

04/02/2022

Rediff.com / by Neeta Kolhatkar

‘It’s little things like these – sharing medicines, consoling each other after a mulaqat (meeting) or a tearful phone conversation with your loved ones or when we would return, dejected, when our bails were rejected – that made our time in jail bearable.’
Creativity, says Sudha Bharadwaj, is a vital lifeline for those who find their freedom taken away for crimes they may, or may not, have committed.
Survival as a prisoner during the last three years has been difficult, both emotionally and physically, but her brilliant smile makes light of it.
There were times however, she tells Rediff.com Senior Contributor Neeta Kolhatkar, when she too felt devastated.
Read more

Part IV: ‘It is my love for the people of this country’

04/02/2022

Rediff.com / by Neeta Kolhatkar

‘I can’t help it if people don’t love the minorities, the Dalits and Adivasis; they are as much of this country as any other Indian.’
‘If I love them, it does not mean I do not love my country.’
‘It is ironic and funny that they have laid such severe anti-national charges against me.’
Good memories. And bad.
Difficult moments. And memorable ones.
Trade union leader, activist and lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj has gathered them all in her challenging walk through Life.
Read more

Part II: ‘My greatest strength were prison inmates’

03/02/2022

Rediff.com / by Neeta Kolhatkar

‘You are with each other 24×7, so how can you ignore someone crying next to you?’
‘How can you not share a piece of chicken with someone who is sitting next to you and watching you eat it?’
‘Of course, you will share.’
‘And you become friends with the kind of people you never thought you’d even know.’
In a conversation with Rediff.com Senior Contributor Neeta Kolhatkar, Sudha Bharadwaj explains how she kept her spirits up.
Read more

Also read:
● Part I: ‘I was imprisoned in the phansi yard’ (Rediff.com / Feb 2022)

‘I was imprisoned in the phansi yard’ – Sudha Bharadwaj speaks to Neeta Kolhatkar

‘I was imprisoned in the phansi yard’ – Sudha Bharadwaj speaks to Neeta Kolhatkar

Rediff.com / by Neeta Kolhatkar

‘I was told to go to the next room and strip — that’s when it really hits you for the first time… that you are a criminal and you are being treated like one.’
‘It comes as a shock when, instead of your name, you hear, “Yeh naya Maowadi aaya hai (A new Maoist has arrived)”.’
Sudha Bharadwaj speaks to Rediff.com Senior Contributor Neeta Kolhatkar about her experiences in jail. Considering prisoners are denied basic human rights – mulaqatein (meetings) with her daughter were tough – the coping mechanisms adopted by women, she says, are fascinating and have kept her going.
Read more


E-Book: From Phansi Yard: My Year with the Women of Yerawada
By Sudha Bharadwaj (Author)

Publisher : ‎ Juggernaut (10 October 2023)
Language‏ : ‎ English
Some prisoners pray, some weep, some just put down their heads and work themselves weary. Sudha Bharadwaj watched through the bars of her cell, and she wrote. This is her remarkably granular account of the world of women prisoners in Yerawada Jail in Pune. Bharadwaj was incarcerated here, in a high-security wing called Phansi Yard, from November 2018 to February 2020. She takes us through jail life, her own and the other women’s, from one season to the next, weaving in lively portraits of her fellow prisoners, their children and even their pets, and reflecting on everything from absurd rules, caste hierarchies, food, fistfights and friendships, to the dismal absence of legal aid for the most defenceless of women.
Pre-order