Pune police arrested (Clockwise) Sudha Bharadwaj in Faridabad, Varavara Rao in Hyderabad, Gautam Navlakha in New Delhi, Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira in Mumbai.
Artists on Sunday held a convention to condemn the house arrest of five human rights activists in connection with a probe into a case of caste violence in Maharashtra. Around 200 personalities, including poets, writers and theatre personalities, signed the resolution. They also criticised the BJP government for branding the activists as urban Naxals.
“The BJP has branded the activists as ‘urban Maoists’. We need to counter them with a full-fledged movement. I call upon the theatre personalities here to bring back their popular anti-fascist plays on stage to mobilise opinion in this regard,” said writer Debesh Roy.
Theatre personality Rudraprasad Sengupta said attempts are being made to curb rights of the civil society members. “It as an infringement of civil liberties. We have to keep ourselves ready to fight fascism.”
Actor Kaushik Sen said artists should come together to voice their opinion on such issues. “We should not be selective regarding issues. If there is something unjust happening anywhere, be it here in the state or elsewhere, we all should come toghether and fight against it,” he said.
The participants includeeminent personalities such as writer Mandakranta Sen, poet Shankha Ghosh and Chandan Sen.
Five Left-wing activists were picked up Tuesday by the Maharashtra Police from different locations for their alleged Maoists links. The raids were carried out as part of a probe into the violence between Dalits and the upper caste Peshwas at Koregaon-Bhima village near Pune on December 31 last year. The Supreme Court ordered that the five activists be kept under house arrest till September 6 under police watch.
With PTI