South Asia Citizens Web

Jharkhand’s civil society condemns recent raids on Stan Swamy and other human rights activists

Full text of statement by Arundhati Roy delivered at the joint press conference on 30th August 2018 at the Press Club of India, New Delhi.

We, the undersigned, strongly oppose and condemn the illegal raids carried out in different cities, and arrests of Gautam Navlakha, Sudha Bharadwaj, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves and Varavara Rao by the Maharashtra Police on 28 th August 2018. These are only the most recent arrests in a continuing wave of repression spearheaded by the police at the behest of their political leaders and their communal and casteist agendas against people’s movements and human rights defenders.

PADS demands immediate release of all arrested on 6 June and 28 August. It demands stringent action against police officials who framed trumped up charges against the accused, and violated the right to dignity and privacy of Prof Satyanaryana and K Pavana.

In a conversation with HuffPost India, Truschke, currently assistant professor of South Asian history at Rutgers University, talked about Aurangzeb, why he may not have been a religious bigot with a penchant for destroying temples, and how the Hindu right has become more aggressive in its attacks against those who oppose their worldview.