Free Dr. Umar Khalid & All Anti-CAA Protesters | Arrest the real hate-mongers | Repeal UAPA & Sedition Law
NAPM condemns the arrest of former JNU student and youth activist Dr. Umar Khalid
Delhi police must stop coercing ‘confessional’ statements to manufacture evidence and refrain from painting the democratic anti-CAA protests as a ‘conspiracy against the state’
Repeal the Draconian UAPA | Free All Anti-CAA Protestors
Arrest Kapil Mishra and all those who incited the ‘Delhi Riots’
14th Sep, 2020: The spate of repression and arbitrary arrests of anti-CAA activists and students continues in the capital, with yesterday’s late-night arrest of young social justice activist Dr. Umar Khalid, after 11 hours of intense ‘interrogation’. The Delhi Police has arrested him on the basis of manufactured evidence through coerced statements, falsely accusing him of being the ‘master mind’ behind the ‘Delhi Riots’ of February, 2020. It is now learnt that the Court has remanded him to “10 days police custody” so that he can be further interrogated over data and documents running into “11 lakh pages”!
As firm believers in a democratic ethos, we are anguished and outraged at the relentless silencing of young and progressive voices by this regime, many of who happen to be muslims, students, activists and academics. The speeches by all of them during the vibrant women-led anti-CAA mass protests are available for public scrutiny and by no stretch of argument can they be interpreted to be ‘inciting hate or violence’. Quite to the contrary, they all are promoting love, peace and constitutional values.
Notably, anticipating the impending arrest, Umar Khalid had written to the Delhi Police Commissioner on 1st Sep, with regard to the statements being extracted from witnesses in order to frame him under several charges including UAPA, sedition and conspiracy for murder. Following this, on 4th Sep, four senior civil society members including Prof. Apoorvanand (Delhi University), Mr. Harsh Mander (former IAS officer and peace activist), Mr. Yogendra Yadav (National President, Swaraj Abhiyan) and Kawalpreet Kaur (student activist, AISA), along with Umar Khalid addressed a press conference highlighting the “continuing attempt by the Delhi Police to falsely implicate” activists of the anti-CAA movement as the ‘masterminds of the February riots’.
Yesterday, Sri Julio Ribeiro, retired Police Commissioner of Mumbai and DGP Gujarat & Punjab, wrote to the Delhi Police Commissioner in which he spoke out strongly against the clearly biased investigation and said: “The Delhi Police has taken action against peaceful protestors but deliberately failed to register cognizable offences against those who made hate speeches which triggered the riots in N.E. Delhi.” Today another 9 IPS officers from different states have written to the Police Commissioner regarding the flawed investigation into the Delhi riots and requested him to “reinvestigate all riot cases fairly and without any bias based on sound principles of criminal investigations to provide justice to the victims and their families and for upholding the rule of law”.
Despite these interventions and over 1,000 well-known citizens writing to the Delhi Police, the latter, clearly under instructions from the Union Home Ministry has gone ahead with another arrest on false grounds, while ignoring those who have publicly incited violence in Delh. Most prominent among this is Mr. Kapil Mishra, a BJP leader caught on video inciting mobs to violently attack anti-CAA protestors, who is still roaming free. Mr. Mishra has infact circulated a fresh video today, equating the Delhi violence to the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack and calling for ‘death penalty to the activists’! We would like to remind the Delhi Police that compromising investigation to serve political dispensations is an act of gross unprofessionalism and an attack on the democratic institutions and values of this country, which they are supposed to uphold.
In the past six months, under the cover of lockdown, many young students and activists have been arrested under UAPA and most of them including Gulfisha Fatima (Student, DU), Ishrat Jahan (Congress activist), Devangana Kalita and Natasha Narwal (Students and Feminist Activists of Pinjra Tod), Khalid Saifi (United Against Hate), Meeran Haider (President, RJD Youth Wing, Delhi), Asif Tanha (Jamia student), Sharjeel Imam (JNU scholar), Shifa-Ur-Rehman (President, Jamia Alumni Association) continue to languish in jail. Their bail applications in the UAPA matter has been repeatedly rejected and some of them have reportedly faced severe torture in custody. All of them have been falsely charged with being part of a ‘conspiracy’ to incite the Delhi riots’.
The Delhi police has now issued summons to film makers Rahul Roy and Saba Dewan who appeared for investigation today. A large number of other activists and students in the capital have been questioned in the past few months, phones of many of them seized and all of them put under heavy surveillance. Others who are under the radar include Sitaram Yechury of CPM, Prof. Yogendra Yadav, Prof. Apoorvanand, Prof. Jayati Ghosh, Adv. Mahmood Pracha, Chandrasekhar Azad (Bhim Army), although the Delhi police issued a clarification that Mr. Yechury, Mr. Yadav and Ms. Ghosh have not been ‘arraigned as accused in the supplementary charge sheet’.
During these months, on multiple occasions the trial courts have observed that the media has been peddling false information and making selective leakages, leading to a biased trial by sections of the compromised fourth estate. It is high time we come together and stand up against this colossal injustice, contest the convolution of facts, where innocent people are being arrested on false charges, while those who incited the violence are being let scot-free. We urge all the peace, justice-loving and democratic-minded citizens of our country to rise in rage against the toxic narrative being spun by this regime to quell all rightful questioning of its unjust policies and such blatant undermining of the rule of law.
Given the overall political context, no amount of ‘urging’ the powers-that-be is likely to make a difference, but we must prepare ourselves to fight this battle of narratives in the true spirit of Satyagraha, as stated powerfully by Dr. Umar Khalid himself, “We won’t respond to violence with violence. We won’t respond to hate with hate. If they spread hate, we will respond to it with love. If they thrash us with lathis, we keep holding the tricolour.”
NAPM demands the immediate:
· RELEASE of Dr. Umar Khalid and all the anti-CAA protestors who were part of a completely legitimate and peaceful protest like lakhs of other citizens across India.
· SAFETY of Umar and all the anti-CAA activists in both police and judicial custody.
· REPEAL of UAPA and the sedition law which have become instruments of violation of fundamental freedoms and civil liberties.
· ARREST of all right-wing political and other leaders including Kapil Mishra, Anurag Thakur, Pravesh Verma, Komal Sharma, Rambhakt Gopal, Ragini Tiwari etc. against who clear evidence of inciting hate and violence is available in the public domain.
· REPEAL of CAA-NRC-NPR which are, per se, unconstitutional and violative of the principles of just and equal citizenship.
As representatives of various people’s movements from across India, committed to constitutional values, we call upon the Delhi police and the Home Ministry to end this vicious hounding of peace-loving activists and instead hold the actual culprits of the violence in the capital from Delhi-February accountable and render full justice, compensation and rehabilitation to all families affected by the violence.
We are committed to a continued struggle against this climate of fear, terror, lies and hate.
Medha Patkar, Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) and National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM); Dr. Sunilam, Adv. Aradhna Bhargava, Kisan Sangharsh Samiti; Rajkumar Sinha, Chutka Parmaanu Virodhi Sangharsh Samiti, NAPM, Madhya Pradesh;
Aruna Roy, Nikhil Dey, Shankar Singh, Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS), National Campaign for People’s Right to Information; Kavita Srivastava, People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL); Kailash Meena NAPM Rajasthan;
Prafulla Samantara, Lok Shakti Abhiyan; Lingraj Azad, Samajwadi Jan Parishad & Niyamgiri Suraksha Samiti, Manorama, Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti; Lingaraj Pradhan, Satya banchor, Anant, Kalyan Anand, Arun Jena, Trilochan Punji, Lakshimipriya Mohanty and Balakrishna Sand, Manas Patnaik, NAPM Odisha;
Sandeep Pandey (Socialist Party of India); Richa Singh & Rambeti (Sangatin Kisaan Mazdoor Sangathan, Sitapur); Rajeev Yadav & Masihuddin bhai (Rihai Manch, Lucknow & Azamgadh); Arundhati Dhuru & Zainab Khatun (Mahila Yuva Adhikar Manch, Lucknow), Suresh Rathaur (MNREGA Mazdoor Union, Varanasi); Arvind Murti & Altamas Ansari (Inquilabi Kamgaar Union, Mau), Jagriti Rahi (Vision Sansthan, Varanasi); Satish Singh (Sarvodayi Vikas Samiti, Varanasi); Nakul Singh Sawney (Chal Chitra Abhiyan, Muzaffarnagar); NAPM Uttar Pradesh
P. Chennaiah, Andhra Pradesh Vyavasaya Vruthidarula Union-APVVU, Ramakrishnam Raju, United Forum for RTI and NAPM, Chakri (Samalochana), Balu Gadi, Bapji Juvvala, NAPM Andhra Pradesh;
Jeevan Kumar & Syed Bilal (Human Rights Forum), P. Shankar (Dalit Bahujan Front), Vissa Kiran Kumar & Kondal (Rythu Swarajya Vedika), Ravi Kanneganti (Rythu JAC), Ashalatha (MAKAAM), Krishna (Telangana Vidyavantula Vedika-TVV), M. Venkatayya (Telangana Vyavasaya Vruttidarula Union-TVVU), Meera Sanghamitra, Rajesh Serupally, NAPM Telangana;
Sister Celia, Domestic Workers Union; Maj Gen (Retd) S.G.Vombatkere, NAPM, Nawaz, Dwiji, Nalini, Madhu Bhushan and Mamatha Yajaman, NAPM Karnataka
Gabriele Dietrich, Penn Urimay Iyakkam, Madurai; Geetha Ramakrishnan, Unorganised Sector Workers Federation; Suthanthiran, Suthanthiran, Lenin & Arul Doss, NAPM Tamilnadu;
Vilayodi Venugopal, CR Neelakandan, Prof. Kusumam Joseph, Sharath Cheloor, Vijayaraghavan Cheliya, Majeendran, Magline, NAPM, Kerala;
Dayamani Barla, Aadivasi-Moolnivasi Astivtva Raksha Samiti; Basant Hetamsaria, Aloka Kujur, Dr. Leo A. Singh, Afzal Anish, Sushma Biruli, Durga Nayak, Jipal Murmu, Priti Ranjan Dash, Ashok Verma, NAPM Jharkhand;
Anand Mazgaonkar, Swati Desai, Krishnakant, Parth, Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti; Nita Mahadev, Mudita, Lok Samiti; Dev Desai, Mujahid Nafees, Ramesh Tadvi, Aziz Minat and Bharat Jambucha, NAPM Gujarat;
Vimal Bhai, Matu Jan sangathan; Jabar Singh, Uma, NAPM, Uttarakhand;
Manshi Asher and Himshi Singh, Himdhara, NAPM Himachal Pradesh
Eric Pinto, Abhijeet, Tania Devaiah and Francesca, NAPM Goa
Gautam Bandopadhyay, Nadi Ghati Morcha; Kaladas Dahariya, RELAA, Alok Shukla NAPM Chhattisgarh;
Samar Bagchi, Amitava Mitra, Binayak Sen, Sujato Bhadro, Pradip Chatterjee, Pasarul Alam, Amitava Mitra, Tapas Das, Tahomina Mandal, Pabitra Mandal, Kazi Md. Sherif, Biswajit Basak, Ayesha Khatun, Rupak Mukherjee, Milan Das, Asit Roy, Mita Bhatta, Yasin, Matiur Rahman, Baiwajit Basa, NAPM West Bengal;
Suniti SR, Sanjay M G, Suhas Kolhekar, Prasad Bagwe, Mukta Srivastava, Yuvraj Gatkal, Geetanjali Chavan, Bilal Khan, Jameela, Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan; Chetan Salve, Narmada Bachao Andolan, Pervin Jehangir, NAPM Maharashtra;
Faisal Khan, Khudai Khidmatgar, J S Walia, NAPM Haryana;
Guruwant Singh, Narbinder Singh, NAPM Punjab;
Kamayani Swami, Ashish Ranjan, Jan Jagran Shakti Sangathan; Mahendra Yadav, Kosi Navnirman Manch; Sister Dorothy, Aashray Abhiyan, NAPM Bihar;
Rajendra Ravi, NAPM; Bhupender Singh Rawat, Jan Sangharsh Vahini; Anjali Bharadwaj and Amrita Johri, Satark Nagrik Sangathan; Sanjeev Kumar, Dalit Adivasi Shakti Adhikar Manch; Anita Kapoor, Delhi Shahri Mahila Kaamgaar Union; Sunita Rani, National Domestic Workers Union; Nanhu Prasad, National Cyclist Union; Madhuresh Kumar, Priya Pillai, Aryaman Jain, Divyansh Khurana, Evita Das; Anil TV, Delhi Solidarity Group, MJ Vijayan (PIPFPD)
For any further details, e-mail: napmindia@gmail.com