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Joint Submission to GANHRI Regarding Review of the Accreditation Status of the NHRC of India

Joint Submission to GANHRI Regarding Review of the Accreditation Status of the NHRC of India

Front Line Defenders / by Front Line Defenders & others

We, the undersigned, are regional and international human rights nongovernmental organizations as well as individuals expressing concerns over the developments at the National Human Rights Commission of India (NHRCI).
…
Over the past decade, the NHRCI has not intervened when Indian authorities have targeted students, activists, lawyers, journalists, and critics of the government under the abusive, counterterrorism law, the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). This includes 16 prominent activists who promoted the rights of persons from India’s most marginalized communities, accusing them of inciting violence that occurred during a Dalit meeting in January 2018 in Bhima Koregaon in Maharashtra state. The trial is yet to begin but 15 activists arrested in the case spent years in jail before they were granted bail, while 84-year-old Stan Swamy, a prominent tribal rights activist, died in custody, which a UN expert termed as “a stain on India’s human rights record.” According to reports by the US-based forensic firm Arsenal Consulting, malware was used to surveil and plant evidence on the computers of at least three accused in this case.
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‘A National Hero’: Jailed Activist Umar Khalid Wins International Award For Human Rights Defenders

09/10/2026

The Wire / by The Wire Staff

A special ceremony was held at the Trinity College in Dublin, to honour all the recipients. Khalid was represented by his father, Syed Qasim Rasool Ilyas.
Activist Umar Khalid who has been jailed since the last six years has won the 2026 Front Line Defenders Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk.
“Umar Khalid is the 2026 Asia winner of the Front Line Defenders Award. To those who try to silence his work, he is seen as an “enemy of the state’’ and an “anti-national”, but to others, he is a national hero, a voice of the people, and a human rights defender.
Read more

Also read:
▪ India added to human rights watchlist as repression intensifies in Modi’s third term (CIVICUS / Jul 2026)
▪ Civic freedoms remain at risk with crackdown on protests, internet restrictions and denial of bail to activists (CIVICUS / Jan 2026)
▪ Ongoing detention of activists without bail, criminalisation of dissent and ban on books (CIVICUS / Sep S025)
▪ Read India report: INDIA – COUNTRY FACTSHEET 2025 (World Organization Against Torture / Jun 2025)

▪ India: Authorities must immediately repeal repressive new criminal laws (Amnesty International / Jul 2024)
▪ India: Submission to the UN Human Rights Committee on the deterioration of civic space (CIVICUS /Jul 2024)
▪ Why Courts Are Ignoring Concerns Of Planted Evidence In The Bhima-Koregaon Prosecution (article14 / Jan 2023)

Surendra Gadling’s plea to inspect mirror image rejected, court says obligated to decide plea within 4 weeks

Surendra Gadling’s plea to inspect mirror image rejected, court says obligated to decide plea within 4 weeks

March 12, 2026. Shared by Naresh / @NareshS82042464

The Indian Express / by Express News Service

In January, the Supreme Court said that it would order expediting the proceedings as Gadling remains behind bars for seven years since his arrest in 2019, with the trial yet to commence.
The sessions court in Aheri, Gadchiroli, has rejected a plea filed by lawyer Surendra Gadling, accused in the 2016 Surjagarh arson case, seeking access to mirror images of electronic devices as part of the evidence against him. The Supreme Court has directed the trial court to expedite the hearing on Gadling’s discharge plea, pending since 2022.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Surendra Gadling and the justice that must be seen to be denied (Frontline / Feb 2026)
▪ Explained: The 2016 Surjagarh arson case, the Elgaar link, and why the Supreme Court is intervening now (The Indian Express / Jan 2026)
▪ In Surendra Gadling’s case, adjournment becomes the verdict (Frontline / Aug 2025)
▪ Why Courts Are Ignoring Concerns Of Planted Evidence In The Bhima-Koregaon Prosecution (article14 / Jan 2023)
▪ Surendra Gadling’s Computer Was Attacked, Incriminating Documents Planted: Arsenal Consulting (The Wire / July 2021)
▪ Gadling in jail. Reason? As lawyer-activist he has been ‘unpleasant’ to India’s topcops (Counterview / Dec 2020)
▪ DISINHERITING ADIVASIS – THE GADCHIROLI GAME PLAN (KAFILA / June 2018)

Stan Swamy Lecture Cancelled – A Case Study in India’s Shrinking Space for Dissent

Stan Swamy Lecture Cancelled – A Case Study in India’s Shrinking Space for Dissent

The Print / by Ranjan Solomon

St. Xavier’s bowed to ABVP pressure, cancelling a memorial for the late Jesuit activist, exposing the deepening crisis of free speech and academic courage in India.
The cancellation of the Stan Swamy Memorial lecture and the weaponisation of allegations, truth is obfuscated. 
Read more

Also read:
▪ “Sorry, Stan!” (Countercurrents / Aug 2025)
▪ Daring, Fearless and Kind, Father Stan Swamy Remains a Beacon of Resistance (The Wire | by Hany Babu, Jyoti Jagtap, Mahesh Raut, Ramesh Murlidhar Gaichor, Sagar Gorkhe, Surendra Gadling | Jul 2025)

▪ Video: Testimony of Stan Swamy, two days before his arrest on 8 October 2020.


en | 7:48 min | Oct 6, 2020
Watch video

Conjuring the BK16 Myth: How the Elgar Parishad case rests on fiction and deception

Conjuring the BK16 Myth: How the Elgar Parishad case rests on fiction and deception

Dispatches: A Conversation on unravelling the Elgar Parishad / Bhima Koregaon case with Prashant Rahi, Mouli Sharma and Arshu John

By The Polis Project / @project_polis

With Prashant Rahi, Mouli Sharma and Arshu John
By The Polis Project / @project_polis
en | 49min | 2025
Listen to the recording on X Spaces Live

Conjuring the BK16 Myth: How the Elgar Parishad case rests on fiction and deception

21/03/2025

The Polis Project / by Prashant Rahi and Mouli Sharma

This is the second report in a three-part investigative series on the Elgar Parishad/Bhima Koregaon case. Read part one here.
Three months after a Hindutva mob attacked a peaceful gathering of Dalit-Bahujan men, women, and children, a cabal from the Pune Urban Police mounted a bizarre prosecution, holding 16 eminent human rights defenders (HRDs) responsible for the Elgar Parishad, an anti-caste event held in the city, a day before. The infamous case has, however, come to draw its name less from the event, and more from the calamitous gathering that assembled on both sides of the river Bhima, on 1st January 2018, to pay homage to an obelisk-shaped martyrs’ column, at Perne Phata, opposite the village of Koregaon. In the months that followed, the HRDs were imprisoned in waves of arrests across the country, with no evidence so far linking them to the mob violence.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Why caste Hindutva, not an Elgar conspiracy, is at the root of the Bhima Koregaon violence (The Polis Project / Feb 2025)
▪ THE BK-16 PRISON DIARIES SERIES (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024-March 2025)
▪ My 7 years in Anda cell were the most inhuman form of solitary confinement: Prashant Rahi (rediff.com / Mar 2024)
▪ The Bhima Koregaon Arrests and the Resistance in India (Monthly Review / Apr 2022)

‘BK 16’: Victims of Digital Invasion of the State / The Bhima Koregaon saga of injustice

‘BK 16’: Victims of Digital Invasion of the State / The Bhima Koregaon saga of injustice

‘BK 16’: Victims of Digital Invasion of the State

31/05/2024

Countercurrents.org / by Mubashir VP

Hindutva fascism grew and rose to power by abusing the facilities of formal democracy, spreading hatred under the guise of freedom of speech.
The Bhima Koregaon case and the arrests and imprisonment of human rights activists under the UAPA Act, which critics point out as an example of human rights violations stretching back to the two terms of the Narendra Modi government, have drawn much attention internationally. Moreover, it became notorious as a sign of the government’s reactionary approach to democratic rights, intolerance of dissident voices, and an attempt to terrorise civic life.
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The Bhima Koregaon saga of injustice

31/05/2024

Tribune India / by Julio Ribeiro

Charges yet to be framed against the accused, even though the first arrests were made in 2018
ALPA Shah, whose family hailed from Gujarat, was raised in Nairobi, where my deceased wife, Melba, was born and lived till the age of 10. The Mau Mau movement in Kenya forced many families of Indian origin to leave that country. The Menezes of Goa – to which my wife belonged – was among the few families that returned to India. They sailed back to Goa, while Alpa emigrated to England.
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March 2024 | Scroll.in | by Alpa Shah
An excerpt from ‘The Incarcerations: Bhima Koregaon and the Search for Democracy in India’, by Alpa Shah.
Read excerpt

The Bhima Koregaon Case: A Grave Injustice and Human Rights Crisis

31/05/2024

Radian News / by Mohd Naushad Khan

The Bhima Koregaon case is a complex legal and political matter in India, stemming from the violence that occurred on January 1, 2018, during the bicentenary celebration of the Battle of Bhima Koregaon in Maharashtra. This event holds significant historical importance, particularly for Dalits, who commemorate the British East India Company’s defeat of the Peshwa forces as a symbol of resistance against caste oppression.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Incriminating document found in Fr. Stan Swamy’s computer ‘planted’; similar tampering found in other Bhima Koregaon accused: Reports American forensic firm (The Leaflet / Dec 2022)
▪ Fabricating Evidence Against Life and Liberty: Tampering with Fr. Stan Swamy’s computer and its implications for Bhima Koregaon case (Mumbai Rises to Save Democracy / Dec 2022)
▪ Police Linked to Hacking Campaign to Frame Indian Activists (Wired.com / June 2022)
▪ Leaked Data Shows Surveillance Net in Elgar Parishad Case May Have Crossed a Line (The Wire / July 2021)
▪ They were Accused of plotting to overthrow the Modi government – The evidence was planted, a new report says (Washington Post / Feb 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)

NIA says it has already supplied copies of all electronic evidence to the accused

NIA says it has already supplied copies of all electronic evidence to the accused

The Leaflet / by Sarah Thanawala

Today, the National Investigation Agency informed the court that it has already supplied cloned copies of all electronic evidence it relies on in the Bhima Koregaon case with the accused.
It also sidestepped compliance with the previous Order of the court on providing a chart showing evidence shared and pending with the accused by stating that such a chart had already been furnished by the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL).
Read More

Also read:
▪ Why Courts Are Ignoring Concerns Of Planted Evidence In The Bhima-Koregaon Prosecution (article14 / Jan 2023)
▪ Incriminating document found in Fr. Stan Swamy’s computer ‘planted’; similar tampering found in other Bhima Koregaon accused: Reports American forensic firm (The Leaflet / Dec 2022)

Court pulls up NIA for not giving electronic evidence copies to Gautam Navlakha

Court pulls up NIA for not giving electronic evidence copies to Gautam Navlakha

NIA court lambasts prosecution for not providing cloned copies of evidence to Gautam Navlakha

17/01/2024

The Leaflet / by Sarah Thanawala

During the previous hearing, journalist and human rights activist Gautam Navlakha had filed an application seeking cloned copies of electronic evidence claimed by the investigating authorities.
On Tuesday, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) admitted to not having supplied cloned copies of all electronic evidence it relies on to journalist and human rights activist Gautam Navlakha.
Read more

Court pulls up NIA for not giving electronic evidence copies to Gautam Navlakha

17/01/2024

Scroll.in / by Scroll Staff

The activist’s lawyer said that the central agency earlier filed an affidavit claiming that it had provided the clones to all the accused persons.
A special court on Tuesday pulled up the National Investigation Agency for failing to provide cloned copies of the electronic evidence it is relying on in the Bhima Koregaon case to human rights activist Gautam Navlakha, the Leaflet reported.
Read more

Also Read:
▪ NIA submits affidavit stating accused have been provided copies of all evidence (The Leaflet / Oct 2023)
▪ Why Courts Are Ignoring Concerns Of Planted Evidence In The Bhima-Koregaon Prosecution (article14 / Jan 2023)
▪ Incriminating document found in Fr. Stan Swamy’s computer ‘planted’; similar tampering found in other Bhima Koregaon accused: Reports American forensic firm (The Leaflet / Dec 2022)

State-sponsored attacks of surveillance reveal an erosion on Indians’ right to privacy

State-sponsored attacks of surveillance reveal an erosion on Indians’ right to privacy

Image Courtesy: commons.wikimedia.org

SabrangIndia / by Tanya Arora

Bringing back the ghost of Pegasus malware by the ruling regime, recent alerts from Apple throw up more instances of a state-sponsored surveillance attack on leaders of the opposition and journalists
On the morning of October 31, several journalists and politicians from the opposition parties in India woke up to alerts on their iPhones pertaining to a state-sponsored attack on their phones. The alerts were sent by Apple via message and email. The alert had also alleged that the reason behind the attempts to comprising the phones of the individuals might have something to do with who they are and what they do.
Read more

Also Read:
● Why Courts Are Ignoring Concerns Of Planted Evidence In The Bhima-Koregaon Prosecution (article14 / Jan 2023)
● Incriminating evidence planted in computers: The Trojan solved the Bhima Koregaon case! (Anchored Narratives / Jan 2023)
● Police Linked to Hacking Campaign to Frame Indian Activists (Wired.com / June 2022)
● Leaked Data Shows Surveillance Net in Elgar Parishad Case May Have Crossed a Line (The Wire / July 2021)

Gonsalves and Ferreira application parses evidence supplied and not supplied per Section 207 CrPc

Gonsalves and Ferreira application parses evidence supplied and not supplied per Section 207 CrPc

Poster by #bakeryprasad

The Leaflet / by Sarah Thanawala

On May 23, 2022, a National Investigation Agency court had directed the agency to furnish a chart consisting of the details of electronic devices seized in the case to be supplied to accused persons, which has not been complied with.
On Wednesday, Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira filed an application containing a chart on the electronic evidence relied upon by the prosecution.
Read more

Also Read:
● What is Section 207 CrPC, an essential piece of the Bhima Koregaon case puzzle? (The Leaflet / Aug 2023)
● Why Courts Are Ignoring Concerns Of Planted Evidence In The Bhima-Koregaon Prosecution (article14 / Jan 2023)
● Prison-rights activist Rona Wilson’s hard disk contained malware that allowed remote access (The Caravan / March 2020)