Skip to main content

Anti-Narmada dam activist Lakhan Musafir mysteriously under detention for 3 days, whereabouts "not known"

By A Representative
Dubbed “anti-Gujarat” by deputy chief minister Nitin Patel, the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA)-organized Rally for the Valley ended on June 7 amidst news that a top Gujarat activist, attached with the Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti, Vadodara, Lakhan Musafir, over remains under detention for the last three days.
An NBA sympathiser campaigner fighting for the rehabilitation of Narmada dam oustees, according to sources, the police did not produce him before the magistrate even though it is required to do it within 24 hours of detention to prove the reason behind detention.
“He has been kept him at an unknown place”, claimed a source close to NBA, whose top leader Medha Patkar and other participants in the Valley to the Rally, including Green Nobel winner Prafulla Samantara, were detained on June 7 afternoon after it entered Gujarat from Madhya Pradesh, but released later in the evening.
Musafir is learnt to have been detained after he was suddenly asked by the cops of Narmada district to accompany them during a dinner at someone’s residence on June 6 evening, saying their officer wanted to talk to him. He was brought to Jitnagar, Rajpipala, in the district. On Thursday, according to unconfirmed sources, he was sent to Rajpipla sub-jail.
Seeking “immediate release Lakhan Musafir, illegally detained by Gujarat police”, NBA in a detailed statement has said, following the arrest of Patkar and other activists, the Gujarat police “turned violent and detained all the protestors, dragged women protesters, beaten up two children Kaamil and Hasim of Salsabeel Green School studying in 9th and 8th standard.”
Pointing out that “Kaamil left injured with a possible fracture in his shoulder”, NBA said, “Police also tried to run over their vehicle on two of the protesters, Aswathy and Rohit, young activists with NBA. They suffered injury on their legs. Rohit’s left leg was fracture, and Aswathy’s left leg suffered bruises on her calf muscle.”
A large number of students from all over India, including from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, Hyderabad Central University, Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi University, and school children accompanying their parents, were part of the Rally for the Valley, which began on June 5.NBA has filed a detailed complaint with Nanpur police station against the “brutal and unconstitutional attacks” carried out by the Gujarat Police.

Gujarat farmers refused permission for rally off Gandhinagar
Meanwhile, a senior farmers’ leader, Sagar Rabari of the Khedut Samaj Gujarat, has called the detention of Musafir and attack on NBA activists “absolute illegal and anti-constitution”, adding these reminds one of “brutal fake encounter stories of recent past, even as indicating how brazen the Gujarat police is, and up to what extent police can it go to obey oral orders to please their master.”
Rabari said, not giving permission to hold protests has become a norm, adding, the latest in the series when the farmers of 68 villages, who were supposed to take out a vehicles rally to hand over a memorandum to Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani were denied permission. “Heavy police force was deployed at the venue to terrorize the villagers not to come out of their villages”, he added. 

Comments

Post a Comment

NOTE: Hateful, abusive comments won't be published. -- Editor

TRENDING

Arrival of USS Lincoln: A ‘leisure trip’ to Thailand or a neo-colonial move to commodify women?

By Benyasiri Eimviriyapong   The arrival of the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) for a ‘leisure trip’ in Thailand before returning to its campaign of destruction against the people of West Asia demands immediate interrogation and opposition. For us Thai people, and those in sites of American plunder across the globe, this a rattling of the US’ cold war colonial chains on its most loyal lap dog, while conducting a war of aggression in Iran and the ongoing genocide in Palestine. In allowing the USS Lincoln to dock, the Thai ruling elites are once again facilitating a system of imperial violence that extends far beyond Southeast Asian borders, a system which in our case, is predicated on sexual violence and femicide.
2 comments
»

Pilgrimage or pollution? The waste crisis of Indian faith

By Raj Kumar Sinha*  In today's times, there are certain issues that are constantly talked about and discussed, yet no visible impact seems to be made. Beyond water, soil, and pollution, one crisis that continues to be overlooked is waste. Like other life-threatening problems, waste too is gradually moving toward burying and obliterating us. After the Kanwar Yatra in Haridwar, approximately 8,000 tonnes of waste were left behind on the riverbanks, including bottles filled with urine. 
Post a Comment
»

The 'Dr' debate masks a larger crisis in allied-health education

By Dr P K Gupta*  India’s allied-health professions have long operated in a fragmented landscape of universities, hospitals, State authorities and private institutions, each with its own nomenclature, curriculum and standards. The National Commission for Allied and Healthcare Professions Act, 2021 was meant to correct this by creating a unified national framework for education, professional regulation and institutional recognition. Few dispute the need for such oversight. The real question is whether standardisation is quietly becoming synonymous with longer courses, additional internships and new professional titles—changes that risk masking deeper gaps in clinical training, institutional capacity and affordability.
4 comments
»