Telangana: 146 activists including students, lawyers booked under UAPA; SOS sent to KCR

Hyderabad: National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM) has expressed concern over booking 146 people under UAPA in Telangana. NAPM has written to chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao and appealed for immediate intervention.

A forum of social movements, NAPM said First Information Reports against activists is a disturbing development.

The charges in FIR 152/2022 came into the public domain during a court hearing in Ranga Reddy. The FIR implicates 152 activists. Charges against 6 people were dropped.

The remaining 146, NAPM said, are retired professors, activists, lawyers, educationists, trade union leaders, students and women’s groups, and cultural workers. Some of these are also very elderly raising a major concern.

They have appealed to CM KCR for immediate intervention:

· Direct summary closure of FIR No. 152/2022 naming 152 people and ensuring early filing of closure report in the concerned court of law. Release all persons arrested under this FIR.

· Consider closure of all previous cases in which there has been an unjust application of UAPA against democratic rights activists in the state of Telangana.

· Ensure that draconian laws like UAPA are not unjustly invoked by the state police to prosecute human rights defenders and social movement activists.

· Stop the repression of activists and social movements in the state of Telangana.

· Judiciously uphold the federal rights of the state, so that the Central Government and its agencies cannot make high-handed interventions and abuse the due process of law.

· Take a position against the unconstitutionality of the UAPA law itself and call for its repeal by the Parliament

The letter has been signed by Anand Mazgaonkar, Arundhati Dhuru, Ashish Ranjan, Gabriele Dietrich, Maj Genl (Retd) Vombatkere, Meera Sanghamitra, Pradip Chatterjee, Sanjay MG, Sanjeev Danda, Soumya Dutta, and Suhas Kolhekar on behalf of National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM).

Political fallout

In a meeting, Telangana Congress Party vice-president Dr. Mallu Ravi said the UAPA is being slapped unlawfully. “BRS government must drop all the 146 cases. If they refuse, then Congress will drop the cases once Congress comes to power in the state,” he said.

FIR registered, no knowledge

Some of the people have been booked for the first time and they are not even aware of it.

The FIR filed in August 2022 by Tadvai Police (Mulugu district) came as a surprise to them. Police need not tell the accused that an FIR has been filed against them. Now they are approaching advocates to understand what they must do.

Legal Factors

Legally, an FIR can be registered against an accused and they may not be aware of it. But in the course of the investigation, when they are aware, they can seek legal aid. In the UAPA act, bail is not an easy process, advocates said.

"This is a major concern and for that reason, those who are elderly are worried," said a senior advocate.

“They are not criminals. They are social workers, activists, and reformers. In a democratic country, they have the right to voice their opposition. If the government is going to use UAPA against them, it is a matter of grave concern.”

With 6 people getting relief, there is hope for the others too. Senior lawyers insist that all of them must be treated equally.

The process requires deleting the names from the FIR and quashing them completely.

An FIR with the police department in UAPA without deletion will always be considered a threat.