'Amidst the dark shadow of India’s lockdown, the Delhi police – controlled by the Central government – has been busy with tasks entirely unrelated to controlling the Covid-19 pandemic. Its schedule is packed with searching homes and offices; confiscating phones and documents; and questioning, detaining, and arresting large numbers of persons. It is instructive that these arrests are being made when the Supreme Court has directed governments to decongest jails to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
'Family members of arrested Jamia Millia Islamia student Safoora Zargar say they are “appalled and upset” by the attempts made to slander her on social media, but her husband says he is keeping faith in the country’s judicial system. Zargar, a 27-year-old M.Phil. student from Jamia, is over three months pregnant, and was arrested by the Delhi Police’s special cell on 10 April. She was later denied bail and, on 21 April, charged under the stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).
'Safoora Zargar, a research scholar from Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) university, spent her first day of Ramadan in the high-security Tihar jail in the Indian capital, New Delhi. The 27-year old, in the second trimester of her first pregnancy, was arrested on April 10 and subsequently charged under the stringent anti-terror law, the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, 2019 (UAPA), by the Delhi police. Zargar was associated with the Jamia Coordination Committee (JCC), which organised weeks of peaceful protests in the capital against a citizenship law passed last December...'
'The Delhi Police on Tuesday booked Jamia Millia Islamia students Meeran Haider and Safoora Zargar under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, or UAPA, in a case related to communal violence in North East Delhi over the Citizenship Amendment Act in February, PTI reported. They also booked former Jawaharlal Nehru University student Umar Khalid under the Act...'
'A case that reeks of brazen abuse of power at a time when citizens are hard pressed to place full faith on the state machinery to contain the coronavirus pandemic has come to light in Uttar Pradesh. The Uttar Pradesh police arrested Dr. Ashish Mittal on March 23, 2020. At the time, chief minister Adityanath had already imposed a lockdown.
'While quashing the "Leave India" notice issued to a Polish student for participating in an anti-CAA rally, the Calcutta High Court applied the principle that even a foreigner, who is in Indian soil, has the fundamental right to life and personal liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution of India...'
'The recitation of Faiz Ahmad Faiz’s poem by students protesting against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) on campus last year was “unsuitable to the time and place”, a committee set up by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Kanpur has concluded. It has also found the role of five teachers and six students, who participated in the protest, “to be less than desirable” and recommended that the institute should “counsel” them...'
'The Telangana Legislative Assembly has opposed the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), National Population Register (NPR), and National Register of Citizens (NRC), alleging these formed part of concerted attempts to tinker with the inclusive and non-religious nature of citizenship. Besides violating principles of equality, non-discrimination and secularism, the concerted attempt would also endanger the lives of vulnerable groups who did not possess documentary proof of citizenship.
'Speaking in the Upper House of India’s Parliament on Thursday on the recent communal violence in Delhi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah segued briefly into a topic that has gripped the country over the past year: Indian citizenship. Measures such as the Citizenship Amendment Act and the proposed National Register of Citizens have pushed the concept of Indian citizenship and the role of religion in it to the centre of Indian politics.
'Citizens Against Hate (CAH), a Delhi based collective of individuals and groups concerned with rising trend of hate mobilisation and crime. They released a report titled “Everyone has been Silenced – Police Excesses against anti-CAA protestors in Uttar Pradesh and the post-violence reprisal” put together by a team of human rights experts, defenders and lawyers.
