UP lawyer-activists' arrests 'result of' tough legal challenge to free political prisoners

Counterview Desk
The civil rights network*, Campaign Against State Repression(CASR), has said that the recent arrest Of advocate Kripa Shanker Singh and former teacher Binda Sona Singh under alleged Maoist links case in UP is the result of their legal fight for political prisoners. Ironically, the arrests took place on the same day, on 5th March 2024, when ex-Delhi University professor Dr GN Saibaba was released on being exonerated for similar charges after 10 years of illegal incarceration.
The charges against the two, said CASR in a statement, "are based entirely on the extraction of data from the electronic devices held by these activists that have been seized and the investigation conducted by the Forensic Science Laboratory which have allegedly found Maoist documents on their devices. However, "the government has failed to concretely provide any details on what exactly these documents include."

Text:

On 5th March 2024, the Anti-Terrorism Squad UP raided the home of Allahabad High Court advocate Kripa Shanker Singh, a former teacher and now private typist at Allahabad High Court Binda Sona Singh, after which the two were arrested by the ATS. Kripa Shanker Singh is an eminent lawyer who has been fighting cases related to political prisoners.
The case in which they were arrested was registered in 2019 when political activists and intellectuals Manish and Amita Azad were arrested. Many lawyers, eminent academics and political activists were interrogated during the course of that case’s investigation. Similarly in 2010, Manish’s sister, People’s Union for Civil Liberties UP State President Seema Azad and her partner, lawyer Vishwa Vijay, were arrested in 2012 under a similar case where the state alleged that they were members of the Maoist party.
While the Azads were released on bail, 6 months ago Brijesh (of the Mazdoor Kisan Ekta Manch in Deoria) and a pregnant Prabha Kushwaha (of the Savitri Bai Phule Sangharsh Samiti) were also arrested by UP ATS from their home in Deoria.
On 9th December 2023, a day before the world celebrated the Human Rights Day, Prabha underwent a miscarriage due to the lack of medical facilities provided to her by the police in a timely manner, the denial of a bail to her by the Courts on medical grounds even when doctors recommended it due to hers being a high-risk pregnancy, under this very “Maoist links” case.
This act expresses how the state essentially killed the Kushwahas’ baby in womb and sidelined the humanitarian ground and justified all acts of oppression on political prisoners. The arrests of the Singhs makes this the third arrest of an activist couple in Uttar Pradesh under the “Maoist links” case.
In the last 6 months, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has raided student organizations, homes of farmers union activists, anti-caste activists, authors, intellectuals, lawyers and human rights activists all under this very “Maoist links” case in a harassment campaign, deeming them all as potentially linked to the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist).
On the same day, on 5th March 2024, ex-Delhi University educator Dr GN Saibaba, scholar and cultural activist Hem Mishra, journalist Prashant Rahi, Adivasi peasant activists Mahesh Tirki, Vijay Tirki and the institutionally murdered activist Pandu Narote were acquitted for a second time by the Bombay High Court after a decade of false incarceration.
During the same case, people’s activist Pandu Narote was killed at the hands of the state in prison after wilfully choosing to not move him to the ICU ward after he suffered from swine flu, to which he succumbed at the young age of 33.
In the acquittal order of this case, the High Court bench reiterated the position that not only is upholding the Maoist ideology/philosophy not a crime or evidence of membership of the CPI (Maoist), having access to documents related to the philosophy of “Marxism-Leninism-Maoism” or documents of CPI (Maoist) on them, electronically or otherwise, is also not a crime and not evidence of membership of the Maoist party since they are so readily available on the internet.

State is trying to establish narrative and lay founding stone for multiple Bhima Koregaon-like conspiracy cases across India

Yet, in the Uttar Pradesh Maoist links case in which Kripa Shanker Singh and Binda Sona Singh have been arrested on the very same day as this judgement, the NIA and ATS’ charges are based entirely on the extraction of data from the electronic devices held by these activists that have been seized and the investigation conducted by the Forensic Science Laboratory which have allegedly found Maoist documents on their devices.

The government has failed to concretely provide any details on what exactly these documents include. The NIA, ED and ATS in Uttar Pradesh have become the swords with which the Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government unleash the brunt of Brahmanical Hindutva fascism on all democratic rights, anti-caste, women’s rights, civil liberties, anti-displacement, anti-communal, anti-fascist activists to silence all forms of political dissent, unleashing a spate of Red Scare tactics upon such activists by branding them all with varying shades of “urban Naxals.”
This has also been the general trend all across India since the advent of Brahmanical Hindutva fascism after the victory of the BJP in 2014, particularly intensifying after the arrests conducted in the Bhima Koregaon conspiracy case. The state is trying to establish the narrative and lay the founding stones for multiple such Bhima Koregaon-like conspiracy cases across India, putting forth the idea that very existence of political democratic dissent is equitable with Naxalism.
After all, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself stated in the 2022 Surajkund Chintan Shivir that “every form of Naxalism, be it of the pen or the gun, must be uprooted.” In this distorted narrative of Brahmanical Hindutva fascism then, a lawyer fighting the cases of political prisoners, for democratic rights of people, like Kripa Shanker Singh, becomes a Maoist.
CASR strongly condemns the arrest of Allahabad High Court advocate Kripa Shanker Singh and and former teacher Binda Sona Singh for their contributions in fighting against the incarceration of activists and the release of political prisoners.
CASR demands the immediate release of Kripa Shanker Singh and Binda Sona Singh.
We demand an immediate end to the witch hunting campaign of the NIA, ATS and the Yogi Adityanath-led Uttar Pradesh government against all democratic activists under the name of “Maoist links” case.
---
*AIRSO, AISA, AISF, APCR, BASF, BSM, Bhim Army, bsCEM, CEM, CRPP, CTF, DISSC, DSU, DTF, Forum Against Repression Telangana, Fraternity, IAPL, Innocence Network, Karnataka Janashakti, Progressive Lawyers Association, Mazdoor Adhikar Sangathan, Mazdoor Patrika, NAPM, Nishant Natya Manch, Nowruz, NTUI, People’s Watch, Rihai Manch, Samajwadi Janparishad, Smajwadi Lok Manch, Bahujan Samjavadi Manch, SFI, United Against Hate, United Peace Alliance, WSS, Y4S

Comments

1857 War of Independence... when Hindu-Muslim separatism, hatred wasn't an issue

"The Sepoy Revolt at Meerut", Illustrated London News, 1857 By Shamsul Islam* Large sections of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs unitedly challenged the greatest imperialist power, Britain, during India’s First War of Independence which began on May 10, 1857; the day being Sunday. This extraordinary unity, naturally, unnerved the firangees and made them realize that if their rule was to continue in India, it could happen only when Hindus and Muslims, the largest two religious communities were divided on communal lines.

The curious case of multiple entries of a female voter of Maharashtra: What ECI's online voter records reveal

By Venkatesh Nayak* Cyberspace is agog with data, names and documents which question the reliability of the electoral rolls prepared by the electoral bureaucracy in Maharashtra prior to the General Elections conducted in 2024. One such example of deep dive probing has brought to the surface, the name of one female voter in the 132-Nalasopara (Gen) Vidhan Sabha Constituency in Maharashtra. Nalasopara is part of the Palghar (ST) Lok Sabha constituency. This media report claims that this individual's name figures multiple times in the voter list of the same constituency.

N-power plant at Mithi Virdi: CRZ nod is arbitrary, without jurisdiction

By Krishnakant* A case-appeal has been filed against the order of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) and others granting CRZ clearance for establishment of intake and outfall facility for proposed 6000 MWe Nuclear Power Plant at Mithi Virdi, District Bhavnagar, Gujarat by Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) vide order in F 11-23 /2014-IA- III dated March 3, 2015. The case-appeal in the National Green Tribunal at Western Bench at Pune is filed by Shaktisinh Gohil, Sarpanch of Jasapara; Hajabhai Dihora of Mithi Virdi; Jagrutiben Gohil of Jasapara; Krishnakant and Rohit Prajapati activist of the Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has issued a notice to the MoEF&CC, Gujarat Pollution Control Board, Gujarat Coastal Zone Management Authority, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board and Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) and case is kept for hearing on August 20, 2015. Appeal No. 23 of 2015 (WZ) is filed, a...

Spirit of leadership vs bondage: Of empowered chairman of 100-acre social forestry coop

By Gagan Sethi* This is about Khoda Sava, a young Dalit belonging to the Vankar sub-caste, who worked as a bonded labourer in a village near Vadgam in Banskantha district of North Gujarat. The year was 1982. Khoda had taken a loan of Rs 7,000 from the village sarpanch, a powerful landlord doing money-lending as his side business. Khoda, who had taken the loan for marriage, was landless. Normally, villagers would mortgage their land if they took loan from the sarpanch. But Khoda had no land. He had no option but to enter into a bondage agreement with the sarpanch in order to repay the loan. Working in bondage on the sarpanch’s field meant that he would be paid Rs 1,200 per annum, from which his loan amount with interest would be deducted. He was also obliged not to leave the sarpanch’s field and work as daily wager somewhere else. At the same time, Khoda was offered meal once a day, and his wife job as agricultural worker on a “priority basis”. That year, I was working as secretary...

Proposed Modi yatra from Jharkhand an 'insult' of Adivasi hero Birsa Munda: JMM

Counterview Desk The civil rights network, Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha (JMM), which claims to have 30 grassroots groups under its wings, has decided to launch Save Democracy campaign to oppose Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Vikasit Bharat Sankalp Yatra to be launched on November 15 from the village of legendary 19th century tribal independence leader Birsa Munda from Ulihatu (Khunti district).

Ground reality: Israel would a remain Jewish state, attempt to overthrow it will be futile

By NS Venkataraman* Now that truce has been arrived at between Israel and Hamas for a period of four days and with release of a few hostages from both sides, there is hope that truce would be further extended and the intensity of war would become significantly less. This likely “truce period” gives an opportunity for the sworn supporters and bitter opponents of Hamas as well as Israel and the observers around the world to introspect on the happenings and whether this war could have been avoided. There is prolonged debate for the last several decades as to whom the present region that has been provided to Jews after the World War II belong. View of some people is that Jews have been occupants earlier and therefore, the region should belong to Jews only. However, Christians and those belonging to Islam have also lived in this regions for long period. While Christians make no claim, the dispute is between Jews and those who claim themselves to be Palestinians. In any case...

Two more "aadhaar-linked" Jharkhand deaths: 17 die of starvation since Sept 2017

Kaleshwar's sons Santosh and Mantosh Counterview Desk A fact-finding team of the Right to Feed Campaign, pointing towards the death of two more persons due to starvation in Jharkhand, has said that this has happened because of the absence of aadhaar, leading to “persistent lack of food at home and unavailability of any means of earning.” It has disputed the state government claims that these deaths are due to reasons other than starvation, adding, the authorities have “done nothing” to reduce the alarming state of food insecurity in the state.

Bangladesh alternative more vital for NE India than Kaladan project in Myanmar

By Mehjabin Bhanu* There has been a recent surge in the number of Chin refugees entering Mizoram from the adjacent nation as a result of airstrikes by the Myanmar Army on ethnic insurgents and intense fighting along the border between India and Myanmar. Uncertainty has surrounded India's Kaladan Multimodal Transit Transport project, which uses Sittwe port in Myanmar, due to the recent outbreak of hostilities along the Mizoram-Myanmar border. Construction on the road portion of the Kaladan project, which runs from Paletwa in Myanmar to Zorinpui in Mizoram, was resumed thanks to the time of relative calm during the intermittent period. However, recent unrest has increased concerns about missing the revised commissioning goal dates. The project's goal is to link northeastern states with the rest of India via an alternate route, using the Sittwe port in Myanmar. In addition to this route, India can also connect the region with the rest of India through Assam by using the Chittagon...

Fate of Yamuna floodplain still hangs in "balance" despite National Green Tribunal rap on Sri Sri event

By Ashok Shrimali* While the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Thursday reportedly pulled up the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) for granting permission to hold spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's World Culture Festival on the banks of Yamuna, the chief petitioners against the high-profile event Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan has declared, the “fate of the floodplain still hangs in balance.”

Search This Blog