The People’s Union for Civil Liberties on Friday criticised the Tripura Police for booking lawyers under the stringent Unlawful Activities...
The People’s Union for Civil Liberties on Friday criticised the Tripura Police for booking lawyers under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, The Indian Express reported. The lawyers were a part of a fact-finding team about the recent violence in the state.
The police registered the case against Mukesh Kumar, a Delhi-based advocate for the People’s Union For Civil Liberties, and Ansar Indori of the National Confederation of Human Rights. They have been booked under Section 13 of the UAPA, and sections of the Indian Penal Code dealing with promoting disharmony, forgery, intentional insult and criminal conspiracy.
Section 13 deals with participating in or inciting unlawful activities as defined under the Act.
The PUCL alleged that the police filed the case only because the report of the fact-finding team highlighted the “orchestrated violence unleashed by Hindu majoritarian groups like VHP [Vishwa Hindu Parishad] and HJM [Hindu Jagran Manch], against minority Muslims with the tacit connivance and conscious abdication of their duties by the Tripura Police”.
The PUCL said that Mahatma Gandhi had undertaken a fact-finding exercise in 1917, and that the lawyers were following his footsteps. “What they are doing is producing a document which will tell the story of what happened from the viewpoint of the victims,” the organisation said.
On Wednesday,...
