On September 7, the National Investigation Agency arrested two members of the Kabir Kala Manch cultural group, Sagar Gorkhe and Ramesh Gaic...
On September 7, the National Investigation Agency arrested two members of the Kabir Kala Manch cultural group, Sagar Gorkhe and Ramesh Gaichor, in connection with its inquiry into the violence at Bhima Koregaon in Maharashtra on December 31, 2017. A day later, Jyoti Jagtap, another member of the group, had been arrested.
This latest action by the agency takes the total number of arrests in the case to 15. The dreaded Unlawful Activities Prevention Act has been invoked to keep many of them in custody.
Last month, the agency summoned Delhi University professor Hany Babu to Mumbai for questioning and then arrested him. In recent days, the agency has summoned academic Partho Sarathi Ray, scholar K Satyanarayana and journalist KV Kurmanath have been for questioning.
In May, activist Gautam Navlakha was hurriedly taken to Mumbai to effect custody before a court, even as the Delhi High Court was hearing his petitions against the agency’s attempts to incarcerate him.
The authorities have claimed that the activists are part of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist), that they planned events aimed at destabilising the government and that they plotted to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Ten of the 15 people arrested, including activists like Sudha Bharadwaj and Shoma Sen, have been...
