Time to end vindictive acts

The recent arrests and harassment of two human rights activists, a journalist and a police officer are matters of great concern. It began with the arrests of Teesta Setalvad, who helped many Gujarat riot victims to fight their cases, and the Indian Police Service officer Sreekumar, who alleged that the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi had a role in the riots, on June 26 by the Gujarat Police.

The very next day, Delhi Police swung into action and arrested journalist Muhammed Zubair, the co-founder of fact-finding website Alt News, who became a thorn in the flesh of right-wing outfits for busting pieces of fake news.

On July 8, the Enforcement Directorate imposed Rs 51.72 crore fine on human rights organisation Amnesty India, which exposed many rights violations in India, and Rs 10 crore on its chair Aakar Patel. On July 9, Madhya Pradesh police filed a case against Narmada Bachao movement leader Medha Patkar for allegedly misusing Rs 13 crore ‘collected to educate tribal children’.

It is no coincidence that all the cases were filed by the police controlled by the Bharatiya Janata Party. It controls the force in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, and the Union Home Ministry is in charge of Delhi Police affairs. The Enforcement Directorate is controlled by the Union Ministry of Finance and Opposition political parties have been alleging that the agency is acting at the behest of its political bosses.

What is appalling is that many such cases are being filed based on complaints by right-wing Hindutva groups and law enforcement agencies further stack up multiple first information reports against the accused to keep the accused in jail. Zubair was first taken into custody for a fouryear- old tweet.

In less than two weeks the Delhi and UP police slapped four sets of charges against him - one for a 2018 tweet, one for alleged FCRA violations, one for a May 2022 tweet and now one for a 2021 tweet – and hence he could not come out of jail though the Supreme Court granted him bail for five days on July 8.

On July 11, a court in Uttar Pradesh sent him to judicial custody for 14 days in a case registered in September for fact-checking a report carried by Sudarshan News about the Israel- Palestine dispute. Setalvad and Sreekumar were arrested a day after the Supreme Court dismissed a plea by Gujarat riot victim Zakia Jafri against the clean chit given to Narendra Modi by the Special Investigation Team that had probed some of the riot-related cases.

The police took its cue from the incidental comments from the court that “effort of disgruntled officials of the state to keep the pot boiling, obviously for ulterior design. All those involved in such abuse of process, need to be in the dock and proceed with in accordance with law” to arrest the two who have been fighting the powers-that-be for many years.

An Ahmedabad court recently adjourned their bail applications till July 15 after prosecution sought more time to ‘place voluminous documents on record’. Such vindictive actions do not augur well for India and it is time powers-that-be heeded calls for their immediate release.