Outlook / by Preetha Nair
Lawyers and kin of jailed activists allege pre-trial punishment.
“It’s tough without him around. I am not hopeful of any positive outcome now,” says Meenal Gadling, wife of human rights lawyer Surendra Gadling, who has been languishing in Pune’s Yerawada jail for more than a year now.
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Groundxero.in / by P. Varalakshmi
The dictum of ‘natural justice’ that not a single innocent should be punished – is vanishing into thin air in gathering gales of fascism. Professor GN Saibaba is fighting death languishing in a dark and dingy cell, unable to procure legitimate medical requirements. Thousands of Adivasis are rotting behind the high walls of prison. While those actually involved in bomb explosions, murders and genocides, are coming out from within prison walls to be honoured with felicitations. Some are being given chance to be Parliamentarians too. Is India’s political power dictating what and how justice should be? Asks P. Varalakshmi.
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The Hindu / by Sonam Saigal
It has been a year since poet Varavara Rao, unionist and human rights lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj, and activists Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira have been arrested and charged under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) for their alleged links with the CPI (Maoist) and for their alleged role in the Bhima-Koregaon violence.
Their family members, who spoke to The Hindu on Wednesday, said, “The process has become the punishment”, and it is extremely disheartening that it has become very difficult for them to even get bail.
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The Wire / by Siddharth Varadarajan
The UAPA Amendment Bill is the single most dangerous piece of legislation the country has ever seen.
Should government officials and politicians – even upstanding democrats with a long record of respecting the rule of law like home minister Amit Shah – be trusted with the power to designate an individual as a “terrorist”, that too, without that person being tried and convicted?
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The Times of India / by TNN
Nagpur: Justifying detention of Naxal sympathizers Vara Vara Rao and lawyer Surendra Gadling for their alleged role in a case of arson wherein around 80 vehicles were torched at Surjagarh mining site in Gadchiroli in 2016, Maharashtra government on Tuesday informed that more names of Maoists and their sympathisers could be revealed as the probe progresses.
In an affidavit submitted to the Nagpur bench of Bombay high court, the government justified the extension of investigation period and the duo’s detention due to non-receipt of e-mails from Yahoo, the web services provider company.
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Sabrangindia.in / by Deborah Grey
A common characteristic of right wing supremacists in India appears to be their extremely limited and rather vapid imagination. This is best illustrated in a booklet published by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The booklet is an out and out smear campaign against some of India’s most respected intellectuals and human rights activists. However this sinister agenda is driven by a rather banal set of stories.
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News18.com/ by PTI
In her letter to governor Vidyasagar Rao, she also requested him that the septuagenarian should be should be allowed to have Telugu books and newspapers ‘as he is a teacher, poet and writer in Telugu for over 60 years.’
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The Leaflet / by The Leaflet
Revolutionary Telugu poet and activist Varavara Rao has been taken away by the Karnataka Police from Yerwada jail in Pune into their custody in connection with a 2005 alleged Naxalite attack on the police in Pavagada taluk of Kolar districtin which nine of their personnel were killed. The police have implicated well known singer, Gaddar, along with Rao as a co-conspirator.
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Scroll.in / by Scroll Staff
The Karnataka Police on Wednesday took activist and poet Varavara Rao into custody in connection with a 2005 Maoist attack, ANI reported. Rao was taken into custody from the Yerwada jail in Pune where he is lodged in connection with the Bhima Koregaon case.
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Firstpost / by Meena Menon
‘Nyayadhin Bandi Kothdi,’ says a board tucked away in a secluded corner of the Sessions Court complex at Shivajinagar, Pune. That is where the under-trial prisoners who are produced in court are kept in transit from Yerwada Jail. Anxious relatives braved the rain on Thursday (27 June) to get a glimpse of their family members, but a thunderstorm put paid to that. Under-trial prisoners here are escorted to court, tied with thick rope, against Supreme Court rulings. However, the police are more careful with regard to the nine arrested in the high-profile Bhima Koregaon case where they seem to obey the law.
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