India

After police detains HR activists, Arundhati Roy calls it ‘declaration of emergency’

Booker winner Arundhati Roy on Tuesday while reacting to the news of police raids at the homes of human rights activists in multiple cities across the country said that ‘It is as close to a declaration of an Emergency as we will ever get’.  said.

Pune police teams on Tuesday morning raided the houses of activists in Mumbai, Ranchi, Hyderabad, Delhi and Faridabad and arrested five in alleged connection to a Maoist plot, PTI reported.

Activist Sudha Bhardwaj from Faridabad, Varavara Rao in Hyderabad, activists Gautam Navlakha from Delhi, Arun Pereira and Venon Gonsalves from Mumbai have been detained by the police.

The police searched the homes of Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira in Mumbai, Gautam Navlakha in New Delhi, Sudha Bharadwaj in Faridabad and Stan Swamy in Ranchi, Varavara Rao, Kranti and Naseem in Hyderabad and Dalit scholar Anand Teltumbde in Goa.

Varavara Rao was arrested today for his alleged involvement in a plot to assassinate Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi, his family members said. His name had come up in a letter seized by the police during searches.

Roy added, “That the raids are taking place on the homes of lawyers, poets, writers, Dalit rights activists and intellectuals – instead of on those who make up lynch mobs and murder people in broad daylight tells us very clearly where India is headed.”

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