[The move, on the face of it, was to present a new, or rather freshly repackaged, phantom to the country - the "Maoists". And, of course, "Modi, the saviour" - the "target" of a mystery "plot", hatched by those wretched ones That's now added to Gau Raksha and all that to the simmering witches' brew, waiting to boil.
The calculation, apparently, was that whoever opt to talk of democratic right to dissent and basic human rights, to oppose this sinister move, it'd be so easy to brand them as "traitors". That'd be enough of a deterrent. Brimming with an abundance of self-confidence, the "plot" of assassination, in the process, got even further expanded, to include the BJP President and the Union Home Minister as well. Just Like that. The "Leader", the ToI, carried a news item: 'Two letters by Maoists on plans to assassinate Modi, Shah, Rajnath led to police action: Officials' (ref: < https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/two-letters-by-maoists-on-plans-to-assassinate-modi-shah-rajnath-led-to-police-action-officials/articleshow/65583015.cms >). (For a fairly detailed scan of an earlier version of the (phoney) "plot": 'The “Letter” that Discloses a Plot to Assassinate: Disturbing Implications' (at < https://sabrangindia.in/article/%E2%80%9Cletter%E2%80%9D-discloses-plot-assassinate-disturbing-implications >.) But things went wrong, rather horribly wrong. Not only the usual suspects, the human rights activists, all over the land, raised their indignant voices, even the recognised political leaders and parties strongly registered their protests. (Ref.: 'Opposition leaders, intellectuals slam police raids, arrest of activists' at < https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/opposition-leaders-intellectuals-slam-police-raids-arrest-of-activists/story-Yq1LIk1gTAjNQ8xoE2upxH.html >.) Not only that, even a three-judge Supreme Court bench, headed by the CJI, refused to play ball. (Ref., e.g.: 'Dissent is 'safety valve' of democracy, says SC; Orders house arrest for 5 rights activists' at < https://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/dissent-is-safety-valve-of-democracy-says-sc-orders-house-arrest-for-5-rights-activists-118082901109_1.html >.) With a devastating effect! Reproduced below are five edits, which speak for themslves - rather eloquently, carried today by the respective print editions of leading national newspapers.] I/V. https://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toi-editorials/mccarthy-moment-pune-polices-countrywide-swoop-on-left-wing-activists-rightly-elicits-outrage-and-legal-challenge/ McCarthy moment? Pune police’s countrywide swoop on left wing activists rightly elicits outrage and legal challenge August 30, 2018, 2:00 AM IST TOI Edit in TOI Editorials | Edit Page, India | TOI A lot appears amiss in the Pune police raids on seven activists and arrest of five of them for alleged Maoist links. For a major case leading to a nationwide swoop, the original FIR alleging cognisable offences was not lodged through discernible wrongdoing or intelligence inputs, but a private complaint by a right wing activist. The December 31 Elgar Parishad organised by Left and Dalit groups happened right under the Pune police’s nose. That it could detect no wrongdoing then, until it went on an overdrive after the complaint from a political source does raise doubts. Not surprisingly, the police action is being seen as excessive in many quarters and has raised enough doubts for the Supreme Court and two high courts to look further into the case. Some of those arrested or raided were citizens of impeccable reputation like human rights lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj and Dalit intellectual Anand Teltumbde. The point that bears repeating even amid the deafening chorus about an “urban naxal” project – to balkanise the country, as a prominent BJP spokesperson suggested without getting into any hows or wherefores – is that democracy permits dissent and activism. As the Supreme Court, urgently hearing the activists’ plea, rightly opined yesterday, “dissent is the safety valve of democracy.” It is important to make a fundamental distinction here. No democracy permits violent acts against the state or unsanctioned violence against individuals. But one is allowed to speak even in favour of extreme causes and ideologies, like Maoism or Hindutva. Ideas must be fought with better ideas, not through coercion or repression. This is what distinguishes a democracy from an authoritarian state. India won half the battle against Maoism when it adopted a liberal democracy in 1950 and took another giant leap through liberal economic reforms since 1991. Now the Naxal ideology is losing traction even in remote tribal areas. This is hardly the moment to resurrect the figure of the “urban naxal” to target, say, Dalit or tribal or trade union activists. Yet the fear mongering cannot be ignored because it recalls the McCarthy era in 1950s America, when left wing activists were persecuted. Maharashtra police must follow the evidence rather than go overboard. Summoning the activists for questioning instead of making the arrests a spectacle would have been appropriate. Now it faces searching questions in Supreme Court and high courts after reducing due process to farce. This piece appeared as an editorial opinion in the print edition of The Times of India. II/V. https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/editorials/the-safety-valve-activists-arrest-bhima-koregaon-dalit-violence-supreme-court-5331689/ The safety valve The Supreme Court has asked the question. The state must answer why it felt the need to treat respected activists, a priest, a lawyer and a poet in the manner of dreaded terrorists and criminals. By: Editorial | New Delhi | Updated: August 30, 2018 12:59:44 am The lack of clarity about why they had been arrested was not incidental. It was left to the Supreme Court to stand up for due process, and it took the first step. The Pune police had swooped in on human rights activists in six cities on Tuesday, raiding residences, and arresting five of them under a draconian law that has a very low bar for evidence and a very high tolerance of state arbitrariness. The lack of clarity about why they had been arrested was not incidental. What were the dots that connected these activists to the anti-Dalit violence that broke out at Bhima Koregaon in January on the commemoration of a 200-year-old victory of Mahar soldiers in the British army over the Peshwa’s Maratha troops — the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), given teeth, incidentally, by a Congress-led government, does not oblige the state to answer that question. Or any other, for that matter. What were the links between the Elgaar Parishad, a conclave held at Pune on the eve of the violence, and Naxal groups, and a purported conspiracy to assassinate the prime minister revealed by a letter found conveniently on a computer, and the activists who were raided and arrested? On Wednesday, the Supreme Court did not get daunted by a law that permits no questions even as it gives right of way to the state to trample on individual liberties. The court issued notices to the Centre and Maharashtra governments, sought answers, and allowed only house arrest of the activists till the next hearing a week later. Most hearteningly, Justice DY Chandrachud, part of the CJI Dipak Misra-led bench homed in on the heart of the matter: “Dissent is the safety valve of democracy. If dissent is not allowed then the pressure cooker may burst”. Justice Chandrachud’s cautionary note, his warning, must be heeded by a government that has earned itself quite a reputation for intolerance of political opponents and criminalising of protest. Tuesday’s arrests will be read against a backdrop. It is made up of the attempts made earlier on the watch of the NDA government, to label slogan-shouting students on a university campus as “seditious” and “anti-national”. It is shored up by the coinage of “urban Naxal/Maoist” as a catch-all description for all those who dare to disagree with the powerful and the majoritarian. There is, of course, a clear and identifiable danger called Naxalism/Maoism, of guerillas engaged in a civil war against the state. But it is a travesty that the term should be extended and loosened to encompass citizens apparently armed with nothing but their dissenting views, at a time, ironically, when the guerillas are in retreat. The Supreme Court has asked the question. The state must answer why it felt the need to treat respected activists, a priest, a lawyer and a poet in the manner of dreaded terrorists and criminals. And the Supreme Court must hold the government to account for any and every perversion of due process, any and every sabotage of justice, that is bared in the process. When the law is draconian and the politics intolerant, it falls on the Supreme Court to safeguard and uphold the Constitution. III/V. https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/shock-arrests/article24813620.ece Shock arrests: on activists' arrest AUGUST 30, 2018 00:02 IST UPDATED: AUGUST 29, 2018 23:42 IST *While targeting prominent activists, the police have to prove they are not just stifling dissent* If the arrest of five prominent activists by the Pune police in a coordinated operation across four States has resulted in such indignation, it is because of the widespread suspicion that this is part of an orchestrated crackdown on political dissent. The intervention of high courts and later the Supreme Court has given rise to the hope that they will not be put away without sufficient basis, and that the case for proceeding against them will be properly scrutinised. The focus will now be on the next hearing of the Supreme Court, but the dramatic development — which has come months after some Left-leaning activists were arrested in a case relating to the Bhima-Koregaon violence — has raised a fundamental question. Namely, whether the arrests were the culmination of a legitimate probe into a Maoist plot, as the police claim, or whether this is yet another clumsy failure to distinguish between those who indulge in or actively support violent activity, and those who attempt to understand or empathise with the social conditions that breed extremism and insurgency. It is nobody’s case that activists or intellectuals are above the law, but the Maharashtra police carry the enormous burden of proof, having accused the activists of doing much more than inciting the violence that broke out in Bhima-Koregaon, near Pune, this year. What began as a controversy over allegedly provocative speeches made at a Dalit conference relating to the 200th anniversary of an iconic battle site has inexplicably morphed into a larger conspiracy involving the CPI (Maoist). Human rights activists, particularly those working in conflict-prone areas, have been harassed and even arrested on the suspicion of being in league with extremists. While action against them routinely makes the headlines, the bald truth is that successful prosecutions are rare. Charges such as sedition, waging war against the government and promoting disaffection against the state rarely end in conviction. One reason for the failure is that prosecuting agencies typically believe in guilt by association; they confuse empathy with incitement and compassion with collaboration. Also, cases are often filed with utter disregard for the principle that charges such as ‘unlawful activities’ and ‘terrorist acts’ should not be invoked in the absence of actual acts of violence or incitement to violence; mere verbal expression of support cannot and should not be the basis for arrest. The Pune police claim that the five who have now been arrested were raising funds for the Maoists, and indulging in unlawful activities; that they had a nexus with other unlawful groups and, ominously, were plotting to “target high political functionaries”. Given the sweeping allegations of unlawful activity and the enormity of implicating them in unverified assassination plots, the burden of proof on the police is extremely high. Unless proven, it will only confirm suspicions that the law has been bent with the sole purpose of targeting dissent. IV/V. http://www.asianage.com/opinion/edit/290818/arrests-of-activists-totally-unjustified.html Arrests of activists totally unjustified THE ASIAN AGE. Published : Aug 30, 2018, 12:00 am IST Updated : Aug 30, 2018, 4:59 am IST The court has ordered only house arrests for now, while the matter is being heard. People from various organisations stage a protest in New Delhi on Wednesday against police raids at the premises of activists and their subsequent arrests. (Photo: PTI) There are signs of a nationwide outrage building up over Tuesday’s cross-country arrests under the heavy-handed Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act — generally used for dangerous terrorists — of five prominent intellectual dissidents, including poets, lawyers who take up the causes of the marginalised, and academics. The challenge to this came swiftly on Wednesday with five prominent academics and human rights advocates moving the Supreme Court against the “mala fide arrests” that criminalise dissent. The court has ordered only house arrests for now, while the matter is being heard. There have been strong sectional mobilisations against the government so far — of farmers, or on the communal question typified by cow vigilante actions and lynch mob attacks. The current mood of popular resentment is different. It’s over trampling of civil liberties by the State as the police dragged out eminent persons from their homes without giving coherent reasons — pretty much gangster-style. Those arrested include famous people’s balladeer Varvara Rao, 79, of Hyderabad, and Faridabad-based National Law School (Delhi) visiting professor and human rights and trade union activist Sudha Bhardwaj. The arrested dissenters, each with a long record of working with the poor, have been labelled “urban Naxalites” in order to tarnish them, but it’s not clear what the charge against them is. Very loosely, it’s being suggested through friendly TV channels that a plot to assassinate the Prime Minister is being unravelled and “incriminating “ documents and close surveillance reveal these figures are likely to be associated. The idea of their association with such a plot, if one exists, sounds preposterous, though not to the Pune police, which picked up the five individuals. Since none has been linked with violence and public disorder in their work going back decades, it’s plausibly being suggested their arrests are an example of the work of the “thought police”. It’s expected such actions will help keep government critics at bay. A contrast is being drawn with the way the far-right Sanatan Sanstha — that was linked to the killings of rationalists like Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare of Pune and journalist Gauri Lankesh of Bengaluru, and at whose premises near Mumbai bombs and firearms were found — has been treated so far, and the dramatic midnight knock-style arrests of government critics. A plot against a high dignitary like the PM is a very serious matter and should be painstakingly investigated, and not bandied about on television in order to score political points. The Maharashtra police has failed in this regard. It has linked the eminent dissenters with the material supposedly found in June with another set of prominent dissenters said to be associated with a pro-dalit event in Pune on December 31-January 1. This was organised by Elgar Parishad, founded by retired Supreme Court judge P.B. Sawant. The entire thing seems bizarre. V. https://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/editorial-dna-edit-major-faux-pax-the-pune-police-have-cut-a-sorry-figure-2656610 DNA Edit: Major faux pax – The Pune police have cut a sorry figure WRITTEN BY DNA Updated: Aug 30, 2018, 07:00 AM IST With the Supreme Court’s Wednesday order that the five people with alleged Maoist connections be kept under house arrest till the next hearing on September 6, the spotlight has shifted on the incompetence of the Pune police. The law-enforcers have cut a sorry figure because of their failure to pass judicial scrutiny. The charges levelled by the police against these individuals are serious. The accused were picked up during raids carried out in Delhi, Faridabad, Goa, Mumbai, Ranchi and Hyderabad. They were booked under various sections of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (2012) — an anti-terror legislation — and the Indian Penal Code for their supposed links with Maoist groups. If proven guilty under this Act, these very people could be in prison for a long time. Given the gravity of the case, the Pune police should have done a thorough spade work and furnished incontrovertible evidence. Instead, in their hurry to carry out arrests, they jumped the gun to disastrous effect. However, there is no denying the fact that Naxalism is a growing threat in this country and poses an even graver risk than cross-border terrorism. According to the Home Ministry’s 2014 data, more than 12,000 people, including security forces, have been killed by Naxals in nine states badly hit by Red terror over 20 years. The killings had taken place in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. The year 2010 proved to be the deadliest for security forces and civilians as 1,005 lives were lost in Naxalite violence — the horrific Dantewada ambush that led to the death of 75 CRPF men and one Chhattisgarh police constable, the Gyaneshwari Express derailment, the Dantewada bus bombing and the Silda camp attack in Midnapore, among other incidents. For the CRPF jawans, the long days and nights in Naxal-dominated forests have had devastating effects. In the last two years, deaths due to heart attacks, depression, suicides, malaria, dengue and other such reasons have been 15 times more over operational duties. Moreover, the nature of threats too have changed. Red extremists are increasingly resorting to Improvised Explosive Device in their battle against security personnel. This year, till August, 55 security personnel, 170 Maoists and 76 civilians have died in skirmishes. While there is still no definitive proof of urban naxalism, reports of sleeper cells and Maoist ideologues inciting the youth to take up arms and resort to violence crop up every once in a while. Coming back to the case in hand, the next date of hearing will add to clarity since the apex court has issued notices to the Centre and Maharashtra government, seeking their replies. The police and the government must be mindful of the fact that those arrested are prominent rights activists, professors and lawyers and not petty criminals. If the police are not careful, this issue may snowball into a national political challenge. -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth. 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