Key Charges Against Arrested Activists Missing From Cops' Report To Court
PUNE/NEW DELHI, August 30: A day after the Maharashtra Police arrested five prominent activists for suspected links to Maoists, officers on Wednesday filed a document in a Pune court asking for their custody. The document - a remand report - gave 16 reasons why the rights activists should be in police custody, but had none of the dramatic claims made by the public prosecutor in court, NDTV has learnt.
The police document, accessed exclusively by NDTV, claimed all activists are members of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and set up city units of the outlawed group. However, the petition made no reference to key charges made verbally in court and communicated to the media such as a plot to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi or facilitating Maoist funding and weapons via Nepal.
The grounds presented by the police also did not mention the clashes in January between Dalits and upper caste Maratha organisations at Bhima-Koregaon near Pune, which they were allegedly linked to. Neither did it mention the involvement of the accused in the incident.
During the hearing, the public prosecutor read out from letters allegedly seized from the accused, presenting it as evidence that the arrested were working in collusion with Maoists. The remand report, however, only stated that they are active members of the CPI (Maoist) and are trying to "advance their cause" though illegal activities.
The five campaigners were asked to be taken under house arrest by the Supreme Courtyesterday as outrage grew over their detention.
Civil society activists and the opposition have dismissed the allegations against the activists, who were detained a day earlier after sweeping raids across India, and said the crackdown was part of ongoing attempts to stifle all dissent.
The police detained the campaigners, seized their laptops and mobile phones, in raids on their homes in different cities, triggering protests and a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the action.
Sudha Bharadwaj, who has been fighting for the rights of workers in Chhattisgarh among other states where Maoists insurgents operate, said the action against her was part of a broader crackdown on opponents of the government.
"The effort is whatever is the opposition to this regime, whether it is workers' rights, tribal rights, everybody who in the opposition is being rounded up," she told reporters outside her home in Faridabad near New Delhi.
The others detained on Tuesday included Varavara Rao, a prominent poet from Hyderabad, activists Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira from Mumbai and civil liberties activist Gautam Navlakha from New Delhi.
Courtesy: ndtv.com
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
