Arrest of activists and intellectuals condemned
‘Arrests are politically motivated’
New Delhi, August 28: Social activists, journalists, film makers, JNU Students Union, publishers and MLA Jignesh Mevani strongly condemned the raids on the homes of social activists and intellectuals who are critical of the government and the ruling party at the centre.
In a statement, they said that the arrests of prominent personalities like Sudha Bharadwaj, Vernon Gonsalves, Gautam Navlakha, Varavara Rao, Arun Ferreira, Kranthi Tekula and others were nothing but an attempt to strike terror among those who are fighting for the justice for the marginalized. It was also an attempt by the BJP to invent a false enemy and engage in scaremongering to polarize the 2019 Lok Sabha election in its favour. Already, the government and the media houses close to the BJP have been trying to create a false narrative of Maoist conspiracy since June 2018. The government had invented a term ‘urban naxals’ to stifle any criticism of the government. “We have learnt that the Delhi Police, after arresting Sudha Bharadwaj, waited for Republic TV to arrive before taking her to the court. This simply shows that the arrests are incomplete without the accompanying sensationalist media propaganda to demonise activists, human rights activists and intellectuals”, they said.
The raids carried out on the houses of those activists were aimed at creating a spectacle as the writings and views of those intellectuals were already publicly known and well documented. It was a conspiracy to divert the attention from the gravity of the Sanatan Sanstha conspiracy to carry out serial bomb attacks on Eid and Ganesh Chaturthi. The same Sanatan Sanstha was involved in the murder of Gauri Lankesh as per the SIT investigation. The arrests were carried out to shield the murderers of Gauri Lankesh. People like Sudha Bharadwaj, Gautam Navlakha and others who have been arrested are friends of the people who have dedicated their entire lives to the betterment of the society. With the arrest, the BJP was exposing its insecurities and its intolerance to any dissent or criticism of its policies, they said.
The arrests should be seen in continuation with the recent attacks on pro-justice voices like Swami Agnivesh, Umar Khalid and many other student activists from Delhi to Lucknow. A BJP lawmaker from Karnataka even advocated the murder of “intellectuals.” Both the arrests and the physical attacks on justice loving people must be seen in a series of attempts to stifle dissent and deny social justice. So, the government should release all the arrested activists and intellectuals immediately and drop all false and malicious charges against them as those arrests were politically motivated, they said.
JNU Students’ Union former president Mohit Pandey, former vice president Shehla Rashid Shora, journalist and author Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, journalist Neha Dixit, Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani, human rights activist Sanam Sutirth Wazir, documentary filmmaker Nakul Singh Sawhney, journalist and social activist Teesta Setalvad, equal rights activist Harish Iyer, social activist Swami Agnivesh, Shashi Sail of National Alliance of Women and others signed the petition.
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Double-decker electric bus gutted in fire at Kurla BEST depot
Mumbai (PTI): An empty double-decker electric bus was gutted in a fire during servicing at a BEST depot in Mumbai's Kurla area on Sunday, officials said, adding that nobody was injured.
The blaze broke out inside the Kurla BEST bus depot near Kanakia Building at 4.14 pm, according to preliminary information from the Mumbai Fire Brigade.
The parked bus was unoccupied at the time of the incident.
Fire brigade personnel rushed to the spot and brought the blaze under control. The exact cause of the fire was yet to be ascertained, they said.
No injuries were reported in the incident, officials added.
The Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport (BEST) Undertaking has hired 50 electric double-decker buses from Switch Mobility in its fleet of around 2,700 buses.
