Letter ‘concocted’ to criminalize me: Sudha Bharadwaj

NEW DELHI: Sudha Bharadwaj, one of the five activists arrested in multi-city raids by the Maharashtra Police, has outrightly rejected the claims made by the investigating agency and said a purported letter implicating her was “totally concocted” to criminalize her and human rights organizations. The police had claimed that Bharadwaj had written to one “Com Prakash”.

Reacting to this in a handwritten statement, Bharadwaj, who is under house arrest, has said the purported letter shown by the Pune Police is a “mixture of innocuous”.  She claimed a number of human rights lawyers, activists and organizations were deliberately named to cast a stigma over them, obstruct their work and incite hatred against them.

“It is a totally concocted letter fabricated to criminalize me and other human rights lawyers, activists and organizations,” the letter said. The activist-lawyer said the “fabricated letter” had not been brought before either before the Pune Court or the Faridabad Chief Judicial Magistrate while seeking to “whisk” her to Pune.  In a media briefing, the police had released details of seized letters related to five activists arrested in June in connection with the Bhima Koregoan violence that took place in January.

Early this week, the police raided the homes of activists and lawyers from five states—Varavara Roa in Hyderabad, Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira in Mumbai, Bharadwaj in Fariadabad and Gautam Navalakha in Delhi. PTI