Top activists still undertrial prisoners despite uproar on Israeli spyware to ‘fix evidence’

What is Elgaar Parishad all about?

The 31st of December 2017 saw almost 200 Left-wing and Dalit organizations hold a conference in celebration of the 200th anniversary of the victory of Bhima Koregaon, which was won by Mahar Soldiers who were oppressed against the Brahmanical Peshwa Army. The conference near Pune was a bid to organize the oppressed and abused masses in the country to form broader solidarity against the rising Brahmanical Hindutva Fascism. 

One of the convenors and Retired Supreme Court judge gave call to lakhs of people attending the program and the whole country to bury the ‘New Peshwai’ represented by Brahmanical Hindutva Fascist BJP-RSS. On the 1st of January 2018, more than 2000 armed Militia, led by Hindutva Terrorists Sambhaji Bhide & Milind Ekbote, attacked the people at the program with a coordinated fascist attack. A large number of people, mostly from the oppressed class and caste, were attacked. Their property was damaged, and hundreds were injured. 

Instead of pursuing action against Bhide & Ekbote who were the subject of the first FIR filed in Pimpri Maharashtra against whom police conducted raids on the Dalit and working class bastis in Mumbai, they began to target the activists of Bombay Electricity Contract Workers Union. Several activist of the union were picked up and later with raids on residence of Kabir Kala Manch activists in April, 2018, the infamous Bhima Koregaon ‘Conspiracy’ case was in its inception.
Arun Ferreira Vernon Gonsalves Gautam Nklakha and other prominent intellectuals and activists were taken into custody not long after the arrests. This was to suppress a rising movement in support of the release and defence of these five activists. Sudha Bhardawaj, Varavara Raho and others were taken into custody. Anand Teltumbde was arrested, followed by Fr. Stan Swamy and Hany Babu. Ramesh Gauichor, Sagar Gokhe, Jyoti Jagtap. After a long time in prison, on the 5th of July, 2021, an 80-year-old man, Father Stan Swamy died from deliberate medical neglect.
Since then, it has been five years and several reports, including one by Arsenal Consulting, an American forensic agency have indicated that malware and incriminating files were planted on activists arrested in the Bhima Koregaon Case. Rona Wilson in particular was implicated. There was also a lot of uproar when it became known that the Israeli-made spyware Pegasus had been used to target these political prisoners. 

In spite of all of this, and despite the fact that the BK case is a clear example of state malice, civil liberty has been utterly ignored by these activists who have to sit in jails for months without being tried, even though no charges are brought against them. Their imprisonment without trial is another example of how process itself becomes punishment under draconian legislation like UAPA. 

It is another example of how the UAPA laws punish process as punishment.

This disregard of civil liberties, by institutions including the judiciary, has allowed the fascist machinery of state to continue to grow and unleash another series of conspiracy charges on oppressed citizens under the name of Delhi Riots Conspiracy Case or Hathras Conspiracy Case. These cases are meant to suppress any and all democratic assertions, and to ferment oppressed, exploited, and abused unity in the country.
It is also important to remember that the activists jailed in Bhima Koregaon case have been vocal against the state’s genocidal operations like Salwa Judum and Operation Green-Hunt which has been constantly unleashed on people in different names at different times, in a bid to suppress any democratic resistance against the imperialist backed corporate loot of people’s resources under the cover of suppressing the Maoist movement.