Arresting Disha Ravi: State Might, Denial Of Rights, No Due Process
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack
View all posts by this Author
By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2021-02-15 14:46:35
About the Author
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack
View all posts by this Author
The arrest of Disha Ravi, the 22-year-old climate activist from Bengaluru, without inquiry and without interrogation to let her explain her position regarding what the police claim to have found, is wrong. She is not a conspirator as charged. She is a climate activist who was in touch with Greta Thunberg because of mutual interest in working for the protection of the environment. The "toolkit" was not prepared by her. She claims to have edited just two lines of the toolkit. Yet the police have claimed that she has conspired with Poetic Justice Foundation, said to be a Khalistani organization founded by M O Dhaliwal, which originally drafted the "toolkit". Instead of going after those who originally created the 'objectionable' document, the police have arrested Ravi whose role in the "toolkit" was minimal and cannot be said to be seditious.
If the police have other evidence which proves her complicity in the conspiracy, they have not yet made it public. It has been reported that the Delhi Police has already written to Google (as the toolkit was uploaded on Google Docs) to share the IP address from which it was first uploaded on social media. The police should have waited for Google's response and should have traced the sequence of events following the uploading of the 'controversial' documents before going after Ravi and that too only if her complicity was proved beyond reasonable doubt. For, it is clear from what has been made public, and from Ravi's deposition before the magistrate, that she neither created the document, nor provided inputs for it (other than editing two lines, as she has claimed) and was not among the first few who uploaded it on social media. The police also do not claim to have evidence that Ravi instigated Greta Thunberg to share the document from her twitter handle. Even if there was a conspiracy, Disha Ravi is not a big enough player on the global scale to have been part of it. She is just a Bengaluru girl who is at the forefront of lake cleaning drives and other initiatives that make the city a better place to live in. This much will be evident to any informed citizen.
Her arrest is another example of how the police misuse sedition laws and arrests people under them on specious grounds. Further, in Disha's case, due process was not followed and she was not produced in a Bengaluru court for transit remand but straightaway whisked to Delhi after her arrest. When produced before a magistrate in Delhi, she did not have access to legal advice and pleaded her own case. These are serious lapses and both the police and the judiciary are responsible for denying the young girl the rights available to her as per Indian laws.
Delhi Police had registered an FIR under sections 124A (sedition), 153 (wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot), 153A (promoting enmity between different groups) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) on February 4 after Greta Thunberg had first uploaded the toolkit. It is obvious that Disha Ravi has been arrested under these charges. The Delhi Police has said in a tweet that "Disha Ravi, arrested by CyPAD Delhi Police, is an Editor of the Toolkit Google Doc & key conspirator in document's formulation & dissemination. She started WhatsApp Group & collaborated to make the Toolkit doc. She worked closely with them to draft the Doc." These are serious charges and must never be levied without evidence that proves the crime beyond reasonable doubt. But such is the urgency to crush dissent in all forms that those on the periphery of protest movements are charged under them while those who actually commit the 'offence' cannot be touched. It remains to be seen how, and how many, of these charges will the Delhi Police finally prove against her in court.
Picture courtesy:indianexpress.com
