A group of alumni, students, researchers, faculty and staff of the IIT-Kanpur have come out in support of Sudha Bharadwaj, an alumna of the institution, and other recently arrested activists, demanding their immediate release.
A statement by the group also demands an independent and impartial investigation by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) into the circumstances of their arrests.
The arrested activists were accused of having Maoist links.
“These arrests seem to be a mere sequel in an ongoing attempt to intimidate and arrest activists, eminent writers, professors, journalists and human rights defenders around the country,” said their statement.
It praised the work of Ms. Bharadwaj as a social activist.
“Sudha Bharadwaj has a public record of dedicating herself to the most marginalised through her work spanning more than 30 years. She finished her integrated Bachelor’s and Master’s programme of the Department of Mathematics of the IIT in 1984. Already socially conscious as a student, by 1986 she had moved to Chhattisgarh, working with a workers’ organisation and trade union in the mining-industrial belt of Chhattisgarh. It is here she found her calling as a trade unionist, and later, as a lawyer,” the statement said.
The case of others seemed to be similar.