‘Another instance of relentless hounding of civil rights advocates’

Staffers of Miranda House on Monday expressed solidarity with colleague Jenny Rowena, wife of Delhi University Professor Hany Babu who was arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case. They called for an end to Ms. Rowena’s ‘harassment’.

“We are deeply distressed by the arrest of Prof. Hany Babu by the NIA,” the college’s staff association said in a statement. The arrest of Mr. Babu, a respected academic and Bhaujan rights activists, was another instance of the “relentless and incremental hounding of civil rights’ advocates and critics of the present regime”, the group said.

‘Continued harassment’

It also expressed concern over the “harassment” faced by Ms. Rowena, whose house was searched on Sunday “when she was alone with her school-going daughter”, the group said. This was just the latest incident of continued harassment of Mr. Babu, it noted.

The group condemned the “witch-hunt of progressive voices across the country”, and demanded the release of all those arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case and of the activists against CAA-NRC who were being “falsely” implicated in the Delhi riots.

The People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) also expressed it outrage and condemned Mr. Babu’s arrest. “ It shows once again the Indian State’s desperate and diabolic endeavour to continuously silence intellectuals and criminalise those questioning its actions and holding different views, by resorting to fabricated prosecutions using the UAPA,” the PUCL said.