Skip to main content

A "fake" attempt: Why didn't Maharashtra police produce "incriminating" evidence in court, released it to media?

By Adv Masood Peshimam*
The liberal movement in any country, and more so India, has a positive side: It helps check ultra-conservatism, ultra-orthodoxy and ultra-nationalism. It is under the liberal spell that extremist mindsets, seeking to target vulnerable sections and stifle dissent, can be curbed to an extent.
One can express dissent on any issue. The Constitution gives the right to freedom of speech and expression under Article 19, though subject to certain restrictions. However, the concept of reasonable restrictions is capable of widest interpretations, and hence there is a scope of its misuse.
In the prevailing political atmosphere in the country, attempt is being made not just to stifle dissent but sustain the campaign of violence against the weak and the feeble. The worst part of the scenario is that all the wrong things are done in the name of nationalism, and those opposing the establishment are retaliated with the stigma of being anti-national. Liberal voices are not only attempted to be curbed with heavy outpouring of criticism, even violence is perpetrated.
It is against this backdrop that the government of the day is refusing to discourage belligerence and bellicosity of communal forces, who perpetrate a high degree of tyranny and repression, curbing the freedom of intellectuals expressing their dissent.
Recently, the police swooped down on human right activists. The action was described as a follow up of a plot to assassinate the Prime Minister, "unravelled" after the seizure of a letter from a Maoist sympathiser. Those arrested included lawyer-activist Sudha Bharadwaj from Faridabad, civil rights activist Gautam Nanlakha from Delhi, activist Vernon Gonsalves and lawyer-activist Arun Ferreira from Mumbai, and 78-year-old Telugu poet and activist Varavara Rao from Hyderabad.
The arrests, which took place alongside raids on several others' houses, police said, were based on names that emerged during the investigation of five other activists they had arrested in June in connection with the Bhima-Koregaon violence.
While the Pune Police termed raids and arrests a crackdown on “Urban Naxals”, who they claimed were responsible for the violence, many reacted with shock, describing the action as “absolutely chilling” and “virtual declaration of Emergency”, treating it as an assault on democracy. There are allegations of victimisation of the intellectuals.
Meantime, the Supreme Court expressed dismay over the manner in which the five activists were arrested in connection with the Bhima-Koregaon violence, observing that dissenting voices in a democracy should not be crushed. “Dissent is the safely valve of democracy, if dissent is not allowed then the pressure cooker may burst”, said Justice Y Chandrachud.
Subsequently, making out a case for the recent nationwide crackdown on activists by Pune Police, Maharashtra Additional Director General (Law & Order) Parambir Singh claimed that they have enough evidence to prove that the arrested activists Varavara Rao, Sudha Bhadwaj and Rona Wilson had links with outlawed Naxal groups.
At a media briefing, he said he had “email-letters” which purportedly spoke about arms procurement, muzzling of democracy and raising of funds, suggesting, they had solid Maoist links  The police also said that they have recovered “thousands of such letters” from the laptops seized from the accused.
But questioning the credibility of the letters, lawyer Susan Abraham, wife of Vernon Gonzales, one of the arrested activists, accused the police of not following the due process of law. 
“This is just to prejudice the minds of the public and divert the attention from the real issues like involvement of Sambhaji Bhide and Milind Ekbote [in Bhima-Koregaon violence] and Sanatan Sanstha’s involvement in the killing of rationalists. There is no credential value of the letters as none of these was authenticated in the Court, nor given to the defence lawyers”, Abraham said.
She asked why the police did not mention the “letters” in the Court if those were so important. “When the Pune Police filed a remand application in the District and Sessions Court on August 29 during the production of Varavara Rao, Vernon Gonzales and Arun Ferreira, they had stated 18 reasons. Not a single reason mentioned any letter or procurement of arms. I don’t understand why such kind of maligning of the accused is being done when the matter is already in the domain of the Court. This is illegal”.
“Any such document, if it is so sensitive, cannot be opened before the media before being examined by the Supreme Court. This is a actually part of the prosecution’s evidence”, a senior lawyer, practising at the Bombay High Court, Sanjay Kantawala, said. Senior lawyer Mihir Desai also said that the letters appeared to be suspicious.
Clearly, the possibility of someone faking the mail ID and "sending" incriminating documents cannot be ruled out. However, without verifying the accuracy of the documents the media briefing was uncalled for as the information fed at this stage tantamounted to influencing the public opinion. Advocate Abu Zaid Iraqi, prsacricing in Kalyan and Bombay sessions court, believes, “The Apex Court can take suo motu action against the prosecution for prematurely releasing the letters”. Another advocate Anand Khanderao feels that the arrest of these human rights activists is to divert the attention from some other sensitive issues.
Meanwhile, top writer-activist like Arundhati Roy, Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani and senior activist Aruna Roy have protested against the arrests. Roy said, “They should raid those who lynch and murder people in broad daylight. It tells very clearly where India is headed. Murderers will be honoured and celebrated. Anybody who speaks for justice or against Hindu majoritatianism is being made into criminal. What is happening is absolutely perilous”.
Justice Kolse Patil said that the Elgar Parishad had been suddenly linked to Bhima-Koregaon riots when an earlier report had said the riots were linked to incitement by Hindutva activists Milind Ekbote and Sambhaji Bhide. To Patil, the wrongful arrest of activists was an attempt by the state and the Central government to divert attention from the recent arrests of Sanatan Sanstha activists.
The outpouring of criticism against the arrest of activists born out of suspicion is based on the premise that there is an attempt to politically influence different components of the government, more so the law enforcing agencies. Political interference in police functioning is a matter of serious concern. 
 The prejudiced role of certain section of the police to prevent the repeated occurrence of mob lynching, absence of action against those indulging in inflammatory utterances against vulnerable sections and turning a blind eye over similar acts of commission and omission have put the credentials of the police at stake.
However, the entire police force cannot be tarred with the same brush. There are a lot of secular people in the police, who don’t want any section of society to be victimised on the basis of narrow considerations.
Series of gory events are leading to undeclared Emergency with heavy misuse of nationalism, which is much more dangerous than the declared Emergency of 1975-77. During the Emergency there was no attempt to provoke assault over any particular section of society, but currently intense hatred is being provoked against particular sections, sometimes in the name of religion, sometimes in the name of nationalism.
---
*Based in Kalyan, Maharashtra

Comments

TRENDING

Insider plot to kill Deendayal Upadhyay? What RSS pracharak Balraj Madhok said

By Shamsul Islam*  Balraj Madhok's died on May 2, 2016 ending an era of old guards of Hindutva politics. A senior RSS pracharak till his death was paid handsome tributes by the RSS leaders including PM Modi, himself a senior pracharak, for being a "stalwart leader of Jan Sangh. Balraj Madhok ji's ideological commitment was strong and clarity of thought immense. He was selflessly devoted to the nation and society. I had the good fortune of interacting with Balraj Madhok ji on many occasions". The RSS also issued a formal condolence message signed by the Supremo Mohan Bhagwat on behalf of all swayamsevaks, referring to his contribution of commitment to nation and society. He was a leading RSS pracharak on whom his organization relied for initiating prominent Hindutva projects. But today nobody in the RSS-BJP top hierarchy remembers/talks about Madhok as he was an insider chronicler of the immense degeneration which was spreading as an epidemic in the high echelons of th

Astonishing? Violating its own policy, Barclays 'refinanced' Adani Group's $8 billion bonds

By Rajiv Shah  A new report released by two global NGOs, BankTrack and the Toxic Bonds Network, has claimed to have come up with “a disquieting truth”: that Barclays, a financial heavyweight with a “controversial” track record, is deeply entrenched in a “disturbing” alliance with “the Indian conglomerate and coal miner Adani Group.”

Junk food push causing severe public health crisis of obesity, diabetes in India: Report

By Rajiv Shah  A new report , “The Junk Push: Rising Consumption of Ultra-processed foods in India- Policy, Politics and Reality”, public health experts, consumers groups, lawyers, youth and patient groups, has called upon the Government of India to check the soaring consumption of High Fat Sugar or Salt (HFSS) foods or ultra-processed foods (UPF), popularly called junk food.

Modi govt intimidating US citizens critical of abuses in India: NY Christian group to Biden

Counterview Desk  the New York Council of Churches for its release of an open letter calling on the Biden administration to “speak out forcefully” against rising Hindu extremist violence targeting Christians and other minorities in India. In the letter addressed to President Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and other major elected officials, the NY Council of Churches expressed "grave concern regarding escalating anti-Christian violence" throughout India, particularly in Manipur, where predominantly Christian Kuki-Zo tribals have faced hundreds of violent attacks on their villages, churches, and homes at the hands of predominantly Hindu Meitei mobs.

Link India's 'deteriorating' religious conditions with trade relations: US policymakers told

By Our Representative  Commissioners on the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) raised concerns about the “sophisticated, systematic persecution” of religious minorities by the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a hearing on India in Washington DC.

Green revolution "not sustainable", Bt cotton a failure in India: MS Swaminathan

MS Swaminathan Counterview Desk In a recent paper in the journal “Current Science”, distinguished scientist PC Kesaven and his colleague MS Swaminathan, widely regarded as the father of the Green Revolution, have argued that Bt insecticidal cotton, widely regarded as the continuation of the Green Revolution, has been a failure in India and has not provided livelihood security for mainly resource-poor, small and marginal farmers. Sharply taking on Green Revolution, the authors say, it has not been sustainable largely because of adverse environmental and social impacts, insisting on the need to move away from the simplistic output-yield paradigm that dominates much thinking. Seeking to address the concerns about local food security and sovereignty as well as on-farm and off-farm social and ecological issues associated with the Green Revolution, they argue in favour of what they call sustainable ‘Evergreen Revolution’, based on a ‘systems approach’ and ‘ecoagriculture’. Pointing ou

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Our Representative Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

Jharkhand: Attempt to create red scare for 'brutal crackdown', increase loot of resources

Counterview Desk  The civil rights group Forum Against Corporatization and Militarization in a statement on plans to crackdown on “64 democratic progressive organisations” in Jharkhand under the pretext of the need to investigate their Maoist link, has alleged that this an attempt to suppress dissent against corporate loot and create an authoritarian state.

A Hindu alternative to Valentine's Day? 'Shiv-Parvati was first love marriage in Universe'

By Rajiv Shah*   The other day, I was searching on Google a quote on Maha Shivratri which I wanted to send to someone, a confirmed Shiv Bhakt, quite close to me -- with an underlying message to act positively instead of being negative. On top of the search, I chanced upon an article in, imagine!, a Nashik Corporation site which offered me something very unusual.