The activists arrested by Pune police last week as a part of the Bhima Koregaon case were charged under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) in the absence of a terror plot, the People’s Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) said in a statement on Wednesday.
Releasing a report titled “The Missing Terror Plot: Bhima Koregaon and the Politics of UAPA”, PUDR said the police had claimed to have unearthed “thousands of letters” and proof against Varavara Rao, Gautam Navlakha, Vernon Gonsalves, Sudha Bhardwaj and Arun Ferreira.
But, PUDR said, a study of the documents and news reports on the incident showed that the first two FIRs filed soon after the clashes were against Milind Ekbote and Sambhaji Bhide, and that they had been indicted by the Coordination Committee in January.
The report said the timing of Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis giving a clean chit to Mr. Bhide in March coincided with the “clamour against the so-called Maoist connection with the Elgar Parishad”, referring to the event held a day before the Bhima Koregaon clashes.
The decision of the police to prosecute 10 activists, including the five arrested recently, was “evidence of a growing political desperation of the present dispensation”, the PUDR statement said. On the use of the UAPA against the activists, PUDR said there had been “back door entry” of the UAPA in the FIR in the matter “via concoction of an absent terror plot”.
“The UAPA is an extraordinary yet permanent law. This contradiction of borrowing the worst features of previous anti-terror temporary laws in a permanent manner offers the bleakest chances of hope and justice,” PUDR stated.
The organisation demanded the unconditional repeal of the UAPA and the release of political prisoners held under it as well as other associated laws.
