The speakers slammed the Modi government for using draconian laws like the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act to keep the critics in jail.
Team Clarion
NEW DELHI — The Campus Front of India, a student body, released a booklet ‘Know The Activist’ on political prisoners in New Delhi on Monday.
The speakers slammed the Modi government for using draconian laws like the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act to keep the critics in jail.
Welcoming the release of the booklet, Abdul Wahid Sheikh, an activist who campaigns for the wrongly jailed, said that prisoners always long for good food and meeting with relatives.
Sheikh who has spent 10 years behind bars after being acquitted of charges of terrorism said that prisoners correspond with the outside world through letters.
Sharing his experience of how he would smuggle out letters through advocate Shahid Azmi, Sheikh said there was need to open “Prisoners Publishing House’ where they would publish their accounts, poems and letters.
The speakers also hit out the government for arresting human rights activist Teesta Setalvad and ex police officers RB Sreekumar. The Gujarat Police filed the case against them on Saturday, a day after Supreme Court dismissed the appeal of Zakia Jafri against clean chit given to Narendra Modi in Gujarat riots.
Vasantha Kumari, wife of Prof G N Saibaba, one of the accused in Bhima Koregaon case, said that her husband is facing grave health issues in jail but the court are denying him payroll and bail.
“He suffers from polio and is wheelchair bound. His left hand has paralyzed and his right hand has become weak. He is barely able to eat with a spoon. He needs help to go toilet or lay down on bed,” Kumari said to the audio of media persons at Press Club of India.
She also alleged that Saibaba is held in solitary confinement with continuous monitoring by CCTV cameras.
Advocate Ansar Indori explained how the government was using harsh laws to deny bail to prisoners and keep activists in jail.
Ashwan Sadiq P, the general secretary of CFI called the Modi government a “totalitarian regime” which is on way to turn India into ‘Hindu Rashtra’.
Student activist Sharjeel Usmani who spoke in the end said that it was the collective responsibility of the society to back the political prisoners and their families so as not to make them feel socially isolated. “We have to remember that they went to the prison for us.”
