NEW DELHI – Indian police arrested five outspoken lawyers and left-wingactivists during raids across the country Tuesday that drew condemnationfrom opposition parties and rights watchdogs who said it was a crackdown oncritics of the government.
Police said the five had been detained for their links to Maoist militants,but Rahul Gandhi, head of the main opposition Congress party, said thegovernment just wanted to “jail all activists”.
Rights groups and media reports named the five as communist poet VaravaraRao, human rights lawyer Vernon Gonsalves, writer and lawyer Arun Ferreira,journalist and activist Gautam Navlakha, and trades unionist SudhaBharadwaj.
Police did not name the five but the joint commissioner of police in thewestern city of Pune, Shivaji Bodakhe, told AFP: “These persons have beenarrested for their Maoist links.”
The homes of other activists and lawyers were raided as part of theinvestigation, media reports said. Five other people were detained in June.
Police have been investigating violence between low-caste Dalits andupper-caste groups following a political meeting near Pune on December 31last year.
The Press Trust of India news agency quoted police as saying the fivedetained Tuesday had links to the meeting.
It also quoted security officials as saying that “two letters, purportedlyexchanged by Maoist leaders indicating plans to assassinate Prime MinisterNarendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah and Home Minister Rajnath Singh, ledto the police action.”
The government did not immediately comment on the case. But Congress leaderGandhi led critics of Modi, whose right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party willseek re-election next year, accusing the government of seeking to silenceits opponents.
“There is only place for one NGO in India and it s called the RSS,” Gandhisaid on Twitter, referring to the BJP s ideological Hindu nationalistbacker, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
“Shut down all other NGOs. Jail all activists and shoot those thatcomplain. Welcome to the new India.”
Booker-prize winning author Arundhati Roy, an outspoken critic of Modi,said the arrests were an attempt to muzzle freedoms ahead of next year spolls.
“We cannot allow this to happen. We have to all come together. Otherwise wewill lose every freedom that we cherish,” she said, according to the Scrollnews portal.
The Indian sections of Amnesty International and Oxfam released a jointstatement calling the sweep “disturbing” and questioning whether the fivehad been detained for their rights work.
The latest wave of raids is “the second of such crackdowns on rightsactivists, advocates and journalists who have been critical of the state,”said Aakar Patel, executive director of Amnesty International India.
“All these people have a history of working to protect the rights of someof India s most poor and marginalized people.”
In July, Reporters Without Borders warned of deteriorating press freedom inthe world s largest democracy amid a sharp rise in online hate campaignsdirected at critics of Modi s Hindu nationalist government. – APP/AFP