News Analysis India

Tag: Urban Naxals

  • Gujarat won’t allow ‘Urban Naxals’ to destroy life of state’s youth: PM Modi 

    By PTI

    BHARUCH: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said ‘Urban Naxals’ were trying to gain entry into Gujarat by changing their appearance, but the state will not allow them to destroy the lives of youth. 

    The PM was speaking after laying the foundation stone of the country’s first bulk drug park in Gujarat’s Bharuch district. 

    “Urban Naxals are trying to enter the state with new appearances. They have changed their costumes. They are misleading our innocent and energetic youth into following them,” Modi said in a veiled attack on the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) which is trying to make inroads into Gujarat ahead of the state Assembly polls due later this year.

    “The Urban Naxals are setting foot from above. We won’t let them destroy our young generation. We should warn our children against the Urban Naxals who have taken up the task of destroying the country. They are agents of foreign powers. Gujarat will not bow down its head against them, Gujarat will destroy them,” the PM said.

    Modi also said when he took over as the prime minister in 2014, the Indian economy was ranked 10th in the world, and it has now come to the fifth position.

    BHARUCH: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said ‘Urban Naxals’ were trying to gain entry into Gujarat by changing their appearance, but the state will not allow them to destroy the lives of youth. 

    The PM was speaking after laying the foundation stone of the country’s first bulk drug park in Gujarat’s Bharuch district. 

    “Urban Naxals are trying to enter the state with new appearances. They have changed their costumes. They are misleading our innocent and energetic youth into following them,” Modi said in a veiled attack on the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) which is trying to make inroads into Gujarat ahead of the state Assembly polls due later this year.

    “The Urban Naxals are setting foot from above. We won’t let them destroy our young generation. We should warn our children against the Urban Naxals who have taken up the task of destroying the country. They are agents of foreign powers. Gujarat will not bow down its head against them, Gujarat will destroy them,” the PM said.

    Modi also said when he took over as the prime minister in 2014, the Indian economy was ranked 10th in the world, and it has now come to the fifth position.

  • Elgar Parishad case: NIA, Maharashtra government oppose bail pleas; Bombay HC reserves order

    By PTI

    MUMBAI: The Maharashtra government as well as the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Wednesday opposed applications for `default’ bail filed by some of the accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoists links case before the Bombay High Court.

    After both sides concluded arguments, the court reserved its order.

    Sudhir Dhawale, Rona Wilson, Surendra Gadling, Shoma Sen, Mahesh Raut, Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira have challenged the power of the Pune sessions court which took cognizance of the charge sheet in 2019, and sought bail on this technical ground or `by default’.

    On Wednesday, senior advocate Sudeep Pasbola, Dhawale’s lawyer, told a bench of Justices SS Shinde and NJ Jamadar that the accused were booked for `scheduled offenses’ under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), and hence only a special court for UAPA cases could have handled the case and not an ordinary sessions court.

    On the other hand, Advocate General Ashutosh Kumbhakoni, the state government’s lawyer, argued that in September 2018 the Pune court had granted extension of 90 days to Pune Police (who probed the case initially) to file a charge sheet.

    As the charge sheet was filed within that period, the accused were not entitled to default bail, he said. Additional Solicitor General Anil Singh, who appeared for the NIA, made the same argument. A court taking cognizance of charge sheet has no relevance for default bail application, he added.

    Advocate Pasbola said that the NIA’s argument was that the case should have gone before a special court only after the central agency took it over in January 2020, but that was not what the law mandated. The bench then reserved the matter for order.

    Activist and lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj, a co-accused, too had filed a similar plea earlier this year seeking default bail.

    Bharadwaj’s counsel and senior advocate Yug Chaudhry had argued before the HC that judge KD Vadane, who had taken cognizance of the police’s charge sheet and remanded Bharadwaj and seven other accused in judicial custody, was not a designated special judge.

    The bench led by Justice Shinde reserved its order on Bharadwaj’s plea on August 4. It is yet to be pronounced. The case relates to Elgar Parishad, a conclave held in Pune on December 31, 2017. Pune Police had alleged that it had been backed by Maoists, and provocative speeches made there led to caste violence near Bhima-Koregaon war memorial the next day.

  • No link between Elgar Parishad and Koregoan Bhima violence: Two accused to Bombay HC

    By PTI
    MUMBAI: Activists Rona Wilson and Shoma Sen, arrested in connection with the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, told the Bombay High Court on Monday that there was no connection between the Elgar Parishad event held on December 31, 3017 and the Koregaon Bhima violence that took place a day after.

    Their counsels, senior advocates Indira Jaising and Anand Grover, further told HC that the FIR against the activists had been registered in the aftermath of the Koregaon Bhima incident, which pertained to rioting and violence, and not to any terrorist activity.

    There was no legal ground for the activists to have been charged under the stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), the counsels told a bench of Justices SS Shinde and NJ Jamadar.

    Advocate Jaising also raised questions on the authenticity and legal admissibility of the electronic evidence the National Investigating Agency (NIA) claimed to have recovered from Wilson’s computer, and from the electronic devices of the other accused in the case.

    She said the HC must direct an investigation into the alleged tampering of legal evidence. The bench was hearing pleas filed by Wilson and Sen challenging their prosecution under UAPA and seeking that all charges against them in the case be quashed.

    In their pleas filed in HC in April this year, Wilson and Sen said the case against them was based on forged and hearsay evidence that was planted on devices allegedly belonging to co-accused Wilson. The activists cited the report of a US digital forensic firm which claimed an incriminating letter and other material had been planted on the computers of Wilson and several of his co-accused in the case.

    On Monday, the advocates for the accused told HC that the Elgar Parishad event and the one at Koregoan Bhima took place at a distance of 7 kilometres, and two separate FIRs were registered for the two incidents.

    The Maharashtra government had said in the Supreme Court that Hindutva leader Milind Ekbote and some others were responsible for the Koregoan Bhima violence, Jaising said. “My submission is that there is no connection between the Parishad event and the violence which took place. The complaint in this case (Elgar Parishad) was made eight days later. When Milind Ekbote approached Supreme Court for anticipatory bail, the Maharashtra government submitted in an affidavit that he is responsible for the attack and hence his pre-arrest bail was rejected,” Jaising told HC.

    “Then they changed and said that these people (the activists and their co-accused) are responsible. Can these two narratives stand?” she said.

    Jaising further said the petitioners had been in prison as undertrials for three years, with no bail, and with no idea when the trial was likely to begin. “You can prosecute me for the violence, but where does UAPA come in? Where is the allegation of sovereignty and integrity of India? Every riot is not an offence under UAPA. This is a case of selective prosecution,” she said.

    On the issues raised on the credibility of the electronic evidence cited by the NIA, the HC said the same would be considered by the special court at the time of trial.

    Grover and Jaising, however, said irrespective of what the trial court held, the HC must consider what constituted legal electronic evidence and what did not. HC will continue hearing the pleas on August 4. The same HC bench reserved its verdict on the temporary bail plea filed by lawyer Surendra Gadling, another accused in the Elgar-Parishad case.

  • RIP Stan Swamy: A life dedicated to and for Adivasis

    By PTI
    RANCHI: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race” – The Biblical words seem to sum up the life of Stanislaus Lourduswamy (84), the Jesuit priest from Jharkhand who was popularly known as Stan Swamy died on Monday in Mumbai hours before his appeal for bail in a case where he is ironically accused of being an ‘Urban Naxal’ was to be heard in court.

    Swamy or ‘Stan’ as his friends called him had spent long years working among his beloved Advisasis in this eastern Indian tribal state.

    In 2016, moved by the plight of Adivasi prisoners in the tribal state, many of whom were falsely branded as `Naxalites, Swamy did a research on them which was published as a report titled Deprived of rights over natural resources, impoverished Adivasis get prison: a study of Undertrials in Jharkhand.

    His study found that 31 per cent of undertrials and a little over a third of the convicts were tribals. The percentage of tribals in jail was far higher than their proportion of the population.

    Among other key findings were that 97 per cent of undertrials interviewed said that allegations that they were linked to Maoists were false, and 96 per cent of them earned less than Rs 5,000 a month, underlining the fact the poorest and the most vulnerable in the state were the among the ones arrested under stringent anti-terror laws.

    His study coming after three decades of work among the tribals which focussed on their community, land and forest rights, was considered authoritative but also discomfited the powers that be. Swamy who was born in Trichy in Tamil Nadu according to his friends, studied theology and did a Masters in Sociology at the University of Manila in the 1970s.

    Later he studied at Brussels where he struck up a friendship with Archbishop Holder Camara whose work among Brazils poor influenced him. He later worked as Director of the Jesuit-run Indian Social Institute at Bangalore from 1975 to 1986.

    As an activist for tribals in Jharkhand some thirty years ago, he worked for the release of tribal youths from imprisonment, often in cases where they were falsely accused. He took up the causes of tribals marginalised after their lands ha been taken over for dams, mines and townships, often without their consent.

    Two days before NIA took him into custody in connection to the Bhim Koregaon case, the Jesuit priest claimed stringent laws such as UAPA were being misused to arrest tribals “indiscriminately in a video message”.

    The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on October 9 last year had filed a charge-sheet against eight people, including Father Stan Swamy, for their alleged involvement in inciting a mob to violence in Bhima Koregaon near Pune on January 1, 2018.

    Swamy who was arrested from his home in Ranchi on October 8, 2020 had said he has never been to Bhima Koregaon. However he was taken to Mumbai where he was produced before a court and remanded to judicial custody.

    He is possibly the oldest person to be charged under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), officials had then said. NIA officials had said investigations established he was actively involved in the activities of the CPI (Maoist).

    The NIA also alleged that he was in contact with “conspirators” — Sudhir Dhawale, Rona Wilson, Surendra Gadling, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves, Hany Babu, Shoma Sen, Mahesh Raut, Varavara Rao, Sudha Bharadwaj, Gautam Navlakha and Anand Teltumbde — to further the group’s activities.

    The agency alleged that Swamy had also received funds through an associate for furthering the agenda. Besides, he was convenor of the Persecuted Prisoners Solidarity Committee (PPSC), a frontal organisation of the CPI(Maoist), the officials had claimed.

    They allaged literature, propaganda material of the CPI (Maoist) and documents related to communications for furthering the group’s programmes were seized from his possession. Ahead of his arrest, Swamy had posted a video saying the NIA had been interrogating him and had questioned him for 15 hours during a span of five days.

    “Now they want me to go to Mumbai, which I have said that I won’t go,” he had said, citing the pandemic. The video, posted on YouTube, was recorded two days before his arrest. “I have never been to Bhima Koregaon for which I am being made an accused,” he had said.

    He had added that he had asked for questioning through video conference and hoped that better “human sense” would prevail.

    “…what is happening to me is not something unique happening to me alone, it is a broader process taking place all over the country.

    We all are aware how prominent intellectuals, lawyers, writers, poets, activists, student leaders are all put in jail because they have expressed their dissent or raised questions about the ruling powers of India,” Swamy had said in the video.

    He had said he is part of “the process” and in a way happy to be so because he was not a silent spectator and is part of the game. “I am ready to pay the price whatever be it,” Swamy had said.

    The Bhima Koregaon case was taken over by the NIA on January 24 last year. Pune Police has alleged that the violence was caused following speeches given by members of the group Elgar Parishad on December 31, 2017. Violence broke out the next day.

  • ED allowed to record jailed activist Gautam Navlakha’s statement in case against news portal

    By PTI
    MUMBAI: A special NIA court here on Wednesday allowed the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to record a statement of activist Gautam Navlakha, arrested in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, in its money laundering probe against ‘Newsclick’, a news website.

    Navlakha is currently lodged in Taloja Jail in neighbouring Navi Mumbai. The ED had filed an application before the special National Investigation Agency court seeking to record his statement in a Prevention of Money Laundering Act case filed against the website.

    Judge DE Kothalikar granted the agency’s plea. Following a First Information Report (FIR) registered by Delhi Police against Newsclick, the ED registered a money laundering case against the portal with regard to `suspicious’ foreign funding.

    In February this year, the ED raided the website’s office and properties of its promoters in Delhi. Navlakha is among several activists arrested in connection with Elgar Parishad, a conclave held in Pune on December 31, 2017.

    Pune Police had claimed that inflammatory speeches at the event triggered violence the next day near the Koregaon-Bhima war memorial, and the conclave had been backed by Maoists. The case was later taken over by the NIA.