Decrying the willful campaign of misinformation launched by the State in a bid to justify the nationwide crackdown on human rights activists and dissenting voices, social activist and advocate Sudha Bharadwaj has hit back at the Pune Police for circulating a letter full of falsehoods. The said letter that was released to the press was also broadcast on certain TV news channels to prove Bharadwaj’s ‘Urban Naxal’ credentials.
Bharadwaj begins by denouncing the letter issued to the press by the Pune police as “concocted” and says it was “fabricated to criminalise me and other human rights lawyers, activists and organizations.” She points out to how it is a “mixture of innocuous and publicly available facts and baseless fabrication.” She further questions the police’s own confidence in the letter given how they have never presented it before any court or officer of the court.
CJP stands in solidarity with the human rights defenders targeted by a vindictive state. A healthy democracy needs voices of dissent. We also need human rights defenders and social activists to work tirelessly to uphold our shared values of equality, peace and justice. Join CJP now!
You can read the entire letter written by Sudha Bharadwaj in her own handwriting in the pages of an old diary here:
Bharadwaj was one of the many social activists whose homes were raided on August 28 by the Pune Police purportedly for their connection with the Bhima Koregaon violence. Oddly enough, Bharadwaj was neither an organiser of nor present in Pune during the Elgaar Parishad! But that did not stop the police, who seem to be towing a vindictive State’s line, from targeting Bharadwaj. She was not only forcibly detained, but even when she managed to get a stay from the High Court of Punjab and Haryana against her transit remand, the police attempted to thwart that too! The HC Order may be read here:
She was forced to wait in a police vehicle on a dark street in the middle of the night outside the home of the Chief Judicial Magistrate in Faridabad, even as the CJM deliberated upon her future custody. The CJP even went to the residence of the district judge for advise before passing an order respecting the stay order.
Meanwhile, Dr Anand Teltumbde, whose Goa house was raided by the police in his absence, has also rubbished the letter circulated by the Pune Police. “I do not know anyone called Comrade Prakash or any other Maoist leaders. I have not received any such letter. It seems unbelievable that top Maoist leaders would communicate through letters. Who will establish the authenticity of such letters? Anyone can make up things,” he wondered.
Related:
Sudha Bharadwaj’s Remarkable Journey: From Trade Unionist and Lawyer to ‘Urban Naxal’