'Iron Heels'

Anand Teltumbde

On 2 January, a social worker and member of the Bahujan Republican Socialist Party, Anita Ravindra Salve lodged a complaint with the Shikrapur police station naming Ekbote and Bhide as the culprits for the attack on the Dalits the previous day. Nothing happened on this complaint. On 3 January, a call of Maharashtra Bandh was given by Prakash Ambedkar on 4 January, which went largely without any untoward incident. However, the Police actuated themselves thereafter and started arresting Dalit youths with the pretext of committing violence.

On January 8 one Tushar Damgade, an RSS functionary and a disciple of Sambhaji Bhide, filed an FIR naming some Kabir Kala Manch activists for organising the Elgar Parishad, claiming that inflammatory speeches were given in the Parishad that caused violence on 1 January. It was prima facie a preposterous claim.

Firstly the police themselves had witnessed the proceeding of the Elgar Parishad and had a complete video recording to verify the claim. If indeed there were any inflammatory speeches, they could have filed FIR themselves and acted against the speakers. There was no need to wait for nine days for someone to file an FIR.

Next, the provocation in the Elgar Parishad could only be addressed to Dalits. If so, they would not get beaten if they were incited. In the melee, a youth lost his life, which was initially taken as Dalit. Nonetheless, the police picked it up for executing scripted plan.
They raided houses of the named people. As though they got some clues they began insinuating that the Elgar Parishad was funded by the Maoists ignoring the public statements by Justice Kolshe-Patil, the chief organiser of the Elgar Parishad along with Justice P B Sawant that they did not need any money.

Till today having developed this event into a big conspiracy of the Maoists and misleading courts to believe in its lie, the Police haven't enquired with these two justices to verify their premise. In the chargesheet, they have attached a statement attributed to Justice Sawant which he has publicly denied. Even such a grave crime is ignored by the courts.

With the pretext of the Maoist funding theory, the Pune police, in a "joint operation" closely coordinated with the police of Nagpur, Mumbai and Delhi, raided the houses of and arrested five activists on 6 June 2018. They were no way connected with the Elgar Parishad.
Since the arrest, the police went on weaving stories—from claiming that the five persons were behind the violence that disrupted this year's annual celebrations at Bhima-Koregaon memorial to saying they were supporting Naxal activities to finally the most recent story—that they were plotting a "Rajiv Gandhi style" assassination of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. These stories came handy for the police to apply the dreaded UAPA, which does not leave one with any defence and can incarcerate him/her for years in jails.

Basically, these raids were used to get hold of the electronic devices of the victims that can then be used to yield whatever Police wanted to claim. The method of raids was strange. The raiding police would carry two witnesses from Pune to the distant places like Delhi, Nagpur and Mumbai, making a mockery of laid down procedure. They would confine the inmates of the house in a room and carry the confiscated materials in another room for sealing.

Susan Abraham who is herself a lawyer and witnessed this process when her house was raided for her husband Vernon Gonsalvis, has described that the police had brought their own computers and other devices with them. The only claim the police make for their process of confiscation being foolproof and the judges faithfully accept it is that they videoed the complete process.

The judges would not care to understand that electronic devices could be tampered even remotely and any number of files could be transmitted within a matter of seconds. Video cannot be a method of establishing the integrity of electronic devices. I myself being the expert in Information Technology can prove this as fraudulent.

The integrity of the computer devices could only be guaranteed by a hash value generated by specific algorithm and unless that (both) are acknowledged by the victim, it can never be relied upon. The courts would take a blind view saying that it is a matter of trial, knowing fully well that it could take several years and until then an innocent person and his family could be completely ruined.

Police began claiming that they recovered letters (not mails- because mails are non-repudiable) from the computer of one of the arrestees purportedly written by the Maoists. The letters produced by the police were bizarre, speaking of real names of people providing their real phone numbers etc.

That these letters were pure fabrication by the police can be seen by the manner they are worded. As though, the Maoists are running a government organisation that elaborately communicates their plans and expects their recipients to preserve records for audit. They are known for their secrecy, using networks of human couriers, and insisting upon destruction of messages after they were read. Such an organisation could not be communicating with its functionaries through essay like letters.

Many people analysed these letters in public domain and proved their fakeness. The experts such as Ajay Sahany, executive director of the Institute of Conflict Management, which deals with the studies of such organisations trashed them as fake.

Even Justice Chandrachud of the Supreme Court, the only judge who has gone into the merit of the police case, in his minority judgement faulted these letters and recommended the entire case be investigated by the SIT as prayed for Romila Thapar and other public intellectuals. But the strange process of law would not budge by these contra evidence and would be ready to sacrifice the lives of innocent people at the altar of the so-called process of law which itself in reality is worse than punishment.

These letters had names of Rahul Gandhi, Prakash Ambedkar, Digvijay Singh etc indicating that they were also accomplices of the Maoists' plans. It squarely exposes the political intent of defaming these leaders. It is strange that the police would not even try to get the facts from these political people and the courts would not ask them why.

Along with others six activists, five of whom were arrested on 28 August, the Pune police raided my house too. They got the security person get the duplicate key and open the house in our absence without any warrant.

As written in the panchanama, they just videographed the interiors and locked back the house.

We were in Mumbai. As the TV channels flashed the news of our house being opened and searched, my wife rushed back by the next flight and lodged the complaint with the Bicholim Police Station providing our telephone numbers if the police wanted to ask us anything.

On August 31 the Additional Director General of Police Shri Parminder Singh took a press conference in Pune and among others, flashed one letter in support of my involvement. The letter was written by someone supposed to be a Maoist to some Com Anand referring to a Paris Conference in April 2018, which appeared to be true. I did attend an academic conference along with many scholars from all over the world, which was organised by the American University of Paris.

It was hilarious in its narrative that indicated that the Maoists gave money to this university and asked them to invite me for it. It also suggested that they arranged with "Com. Etienne Balibar (Professor Balibar is highly respected French Marxist scholar) that he would interview me (sic) and "Com Anupama Rao and Shailaja Paik" (Professors teaching in Bernard College and Cincinnati University, respectively) that they would invite me to their universities as guest lecturers.

I obtained the letter from NDTV and mailed it to Balibar and the organiser of the conference, Prof Lissa Lincoln. They were stunned by this canard and wrote back to me. Balibar angrily sent letter of protest and even written to the French Embassy. Prof Lincoln explained how the University invited me and bore the entire expense for my attendance.

On the basis of solid evidence, I decided to prosecute Paramjit Singh for defamation and wrote a letter to Maharashtra Government on 5 September seeking its permission as per the procedure. There is no response to it till today.

Meanwhile, since there was apparently no case against me and thinking that my letter to the government might have brought them a sense of guilt, I decided to file a petition for quashing FIR against me to the High Court. The Bench rightly asked the police to submit an affidavit listing all the things that they had against me. The Police submitted the affidavit listing five charges vide five letters, including one discussed above. In my reply, we refuted all their contention and proved that even if the letters were held as genuine, they do not make any triable case. The other four letters were:
The first letter written by someone to someone saying that some Anand has taken responsibility of organising Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle (APSC), which came to limelight in 2015 when the IIT Madras administration derecog-nised them. I was then Professor in the Business school of IIT, Kharagpur, more than 2000 km away from Madras. If I had an inkling of organising students, I could do it in my own IIT; not the most distant IIT. In any case, when the APSC learnt it in newspapers, a founding member sent me a letter saying that I did not have any role in their formation or activities.

The second letter, again written by someone to someone referred to some Anand making a "good suggestion" in the meeting of Anuradha Ghandy Memorial Committee (AGMC). Well, if that Anand also is identified with me, I am a member of the Trust along with many other respectable members, which is a decade old registered body with its PAN, Bank Account, and respectable people as members. It held public lectures by eminent scholars like Samir Amin and Angela Davis which were widely covered by the press. As for my role in the Trust or committee, I could not even attend their meetings and lectures barring a couple of them over the last ten years because I was physically away (at IIT Kharagpur from 2010 to 2016 and thereafter at Goa).

The third letter again written by someone to someone in which there is a reference to some Anand taking responsibility of organising a fact finding into Gadchiroli encounter. Presuming the Anand in the letter is me, I am a General Secretary of Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights (CPDR), whose raison d'etre is to do fact finding into the cases of suspected human rights violations. However, the fact remains that neither I organised this committee nor participated in it. As a matter of fact, I have been a General Secretary initially in deference to the wishes of the last General Secretary, P A Sebastian and thereafter, at the insistence of its members although I was away from Maharashtra all this while.

The fourth one was a note allegedly recovered from someone's computer that had a scribble: "Anand T.... 90T Surendra (through Milind)". It is interpreted as I was paid Rs 90,000 by Surendra through Milind (sic). It was ridiculous and product of poor imagination to imagine that I would take such a money as I have been paying that kind of money every month in income tax for years. In any case, such scribbling is said to be no evidence in law.

My rejoinder to the Police Affidavit thus refuted all these charges. But at the end the Police gave some 'sealed' envelop to the judges and the court rejected my petition, without referring to any of my above refutations or my personal credentials whether the police claims could be plausibly connected with my profile.

Thinking that I had a strong case, I approached the Supreme Court but the court took a view that they would not interfere with the police investigation at this stage and asked me to seek a pre-arrest bail from the competent court.

The case has reached a crucial point where all my innocent beliefs stand shattered and I am devastated by the prospect of imminent arrest. There are nine of my co-accused already in jail facing harassment of the legal process. Unlike me, they did not have an opportunity to seek your help. Your standing in solidarity with me will not only lend me and my family strength to endure this torture but also may give a message to the fascist rulers that there are people in India who say NO to them. 

Frontier
Vol. 51, No.31, Feb 3 - 9, 2019