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Innocence Network's 1st People's Tribunal - Jury Report |
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Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity Association
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| Questions are being rightfully raised about the suspicious circumstances in which eight under trial prisoners are alleged to have escaped from the Bhopal Central Jail, and then gunned down in a supposed encounter less than 12 hours later, less than ten kilometres away from the jail. Far too many discrepancies about the course of events, about the modus operandi of the jail break, and the ‘weapons’ they were carrying have emerged in the statements of the various state officials......read more | |
JTSA Condemns RLA College Directive to Saibaba |
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| We are appalled to learn that the administration of the Ram Lal Anand College, where Dr. Saibaba teaches has served him a letter directing him not to enter the college without permission as it creates “law and order problem”. The Principal is surely referring to the repeated attempts by the ABVP and the DUSU to assault Dr. Saibaba......read more | |
Videos from JTSA’s Symposium, ‘Capital Punishment and the Idea of Justice’. |
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Reign in the Trigger-Happy Police Force in Andhra and Telangana |
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| JTSA condemns the killing of over 20 woodcutters in the Seshachalam forests and the 5 under-trials in Nalagonda (Telangana). In the first case, reports are already emerging that 7 of those killed, were taken in police custody a day before the encounter......read more | |
JTSA Condemns Brutal Attack on School Children and Teachers in Peshawar |
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| The systematic and brutal massacre of school children and teachers in a school in Peshawar needs to be condemned in the strongest terms. No cause can justify this. And under no circumstances can either a state or non state actor possibly justify such concerted brutality......read more | |
Surinder Koli’s Hanging will Imply a Judicial Acceptance of Torture Confessions |
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| We are astounded to learn that the Supreme Court has rejected the review petition of Surinder Koli today, finding no error that could have persuaded them to review the earlier order of the court......read more | |
Lest We Forget: The Batla House Case, Six Years On |
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| 19th September marks the sixth anniversary of the Batla House ‘encounter’. Six years ago, on this day, the Special Cell of Delhi Police claimed to have hit upon the perpetrators of the serial blasts that had struck the capital city the previous week.....read more | |
Make the Magisterial Enquiry Report in the 2006 Sonia Vihar Encounter Killings Public—Citizens Urge the LG. |
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| 28th August 2014
To, Sir, Rule of Law requires that policemen who engage in killing prove that they fired in self defence; that the force they used was necessary and proportional to the threat they faced. This can only be proved in a court of law or in a free and fair enquiry....read more |
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Resist State-dictated Silence, JTSA Pledges Solidarity with Dr. Mridu Rai |
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| On 9 July, 2014 the well-known historian Dr. Mridu Rai was scheduled to deliver the Annual Pandit Rughonath Vaishnavi Lecture at a hotel in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir. She was invited by a noted Valley-based human rights group, Coalition of Civil Society (CCS),to deliver a talk....read more | |
An Architect of Conscience: Mukul Sinha (1951-2014) |
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Mukul Sinha’s death remained largely beyond the limelight amid the din over Narendra Modi’s anointment as the next Prime Minister. His steadfastly resolve and meticulous eye for detail, strengths he demonstrated while dealing with hostile administration in several cases, will remain a guiding light for many activists....read more |
Gross Violations of Prof. G. N. Saibaba’s Human Rights Continue in Judicial Custody |
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| The Gadchiroli I.G. claims that it was the court’s issuance of a non-bailable warrant in FIR case number 3017/2013 (Aheri PS, Distt. Gadchiroli) against Prof. G.N. Saibaba that led them to arrest him. Did the court also order that a person who suffers 90 per cent disability be blindfolded and abducted....read more | |
Modi, Media and Terror Threats |
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| The reporting in the media following the arrest of four youths in Rajasthan, alleged to be Indian Mujahideen operatives, by the Delhi Police Special Cell fell even below the low standards the media has set for itself on terror reporting. Forget about the use of the mandatory ‘alleged’ before calling those arrested as terrorists – one would think it is no longer even on the curricula of media ethics....read more | |
Pulping Intellectual Freedom: Academics Will Not Bow Down to Vigilantism |
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| It is an abject shame that Penguin will pulp Prof. Wendy Doniger’s The Hindus: An Alternative History. That this decision was reached in a deal with the petitioners, with no consultation with the author compounds the folly. Coming in the wake of Oxford University Press’ similar meek surrender by suspending publication of Paula Richman’s Many Ramayanas ...read more | |
JTSA Welcomes the SC Judgement Commuting the Capital Punishment of 15 People; Onwards Now to Abolition of the Death Sentence |
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| In what is surely a landmark judgement, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India has commuted the death sentence of 15 persons, including one female, to life sentence. With this judgement, the real and repugnant possibility of 15 executions in the near future has been allayed....read more | |
Guilt by Association: UAPA Cases in Madhya Pradesh |
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Today, even if grudgingly, there is an admission in the mainstream discourse that people may be framed and implicated in false terror cases, often only on grounds of their religious affiliation. Investigations into Malegaon and Mecca Masjid blasts are two prominent examples of this prejudice. There are however, across the country, scores of ‘terror’ cases, which have resulted in the incarceration of hundreds of men, mostly on the basis of alleged ‘seized literature’ and nothing else......read more |
JTSA Extends Support to the LGBT Community, Calls for Committed Judicial Activism |
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| On 11 December, 2013 a two judge bench of the Supreme Court of India (SC) ruled that section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which considers homosexuality a criminal offence, does not ‘suffer from the vice of unconstitutionality’ and hence, legally valid. ...read more | |
Rahul Gandhi’s Pak—Muzaffarnagar Remark Highly Condemnable |
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| The remark by Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi at a political rally that Pakistani agencies have established contact with riot-hit Muslims in Muzaffarnagar reinforces the stereotypes being peddled by Indian intelligence and security agencies to justify their communal witch-hunts....read more | |
On the 5th Anniversary of the Batla House 'Encounter', Let Us Reiterate Our Commitment to Fight the State Policy of Encounters |
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19th September marks five years of the Batla House ‘encounter’. Neither was this encounter unique nor the last in our long and shameful history of extra judicial violence. It has however come to symbolize how Constitutional principles are undermined and all safeguards subverted to protect a system based on impunity. The NHRC guidelines were not followed and no magisterial enquiry was allowed into the Batla House ‘encounter’, as indeed happens with a large proportion of all encounters.....read more |
Teachers Condemn the Police Raid on DU Professor’s House |
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| On 12 September, 2013 in a joint operation led by the National Investigative Agency (NIA), Special Cell, Delhi Police, Aheri Police Station, Gadchiroli, Maharashtra and Maurice Nagar Police Station, Delhi the house of G. N. Saibaba, a noted civil rights activist and professor of English at Ramlal Anand College, University of Delhi, was raided...read more | |
No Special Laws, No Special Courts for Terrorism: Punish Those Guilty of Malicious Prosecution |
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| There have been news reports citing sources that the Ministry of Home Affairs is mulling providing legal aid to those facing ‘doubtful’ terror charges. First, one doubts the seriousness of even this limited claim, given that in March this year the Minorities Affairs...read more | |
“Batla House ‘Encounter’ Verdict is “Perverse and a Mockery of Justice”—JTSA |
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| Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity Association (JTSA), Wednesday, 31st July 2013 released its latest report, ‘Beyond Reasonable Doubt? The Conviction of Shahzad Ahmad’. The document analyzes the judgment delivered by the Additional Session Judge-02, Rajender Kumar Shastri, in the State verus Shahzad Ahmad case (widely known as Batla House ‘encounter’ case....read more | |
Batla House ‘Encounter’ Case Drawing to a Close: Defence Destroys the Police Case |
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| The 2008 ‘encounter’ at Batla House resulted in the death of two young men, Atif Ameen and Md. Sajid, and an Inspector of Delhi Special Cell, Mohan Chand Sharma. The trial, widely known as the Batla House ‘encounter’ trial, is essentially a trial about the death of Inspector Sharma...read more | |
Report of Justice Santosh Hegde Commission Appointed by the Supreme Court to Examine Fake Encounter Cases in Manipur |
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| The Hon’be Supreme Court of India by its order dated 4th January, 2013 appointed this Commission with a direction to the undersigned to make a through inquiry in the first six cases....read more | |
Condemn the Arrest of Advocate Shanavas by “Hi-tech Cell”! Demand his immediate release!
Submitted by admin on Wed, 2012-05-02 18:30The undersigned condemn in strongest terms the arrest of Advocate Shanavas, a leading human rights activist of Kerala. Advocate Shanavas, who lives and practices in Trivandrum, was arrested on 1st May 2012, and his office raided and his files seized by the Crime Branch of the state.
After extracting US apology over Shahrukh Khan, the Indian Government owes several apologies too
Submitted by admin on Sun, 2012-04-15 18:30The Indian government has rejected the ‘mechanical apology’ being offered by the US for detaining the super star Shahrukh Khan at the airport for 90 minutes too long. The US Deputy Chief of Mission was summoned, and asked to ensure that there are institutional mechanisms in place, so that there is no repeat of such an incident.
Maharashtra ATS Displays Appalling Lack of Procedure
Submitted by admin on Sun, 2012-02-12 18:30Investigative agencies are not inclined to paper work. Procedure is followed mostly in violation. This was proved yet again when the Maharashtra ATS served illegal summons to Taquee Ahmed, brother of Ahmed, whom the ATS alleges is involved in the 13/7 Mumbai blasts. Recall that the Maharashtra ATS had first landed in Delhi to question—or rather take Taquee for questioning to Mumbai on 18thJanuary 2012. The presence of vigilant civil rights group and media tamed the ATS and they promised to serve proper summons.
War between Special Cell and ATS Claims an Innocent
Submitted by admin on Mon, 2012-01-23 18:30Some Questions for the Maharashtra ATS Chief
The Maharashtra ATS claims to have cracked the 13/7 blasts case. Its chief has revealed in a press conference that Indian Mujahideen was behind the Mumbai blasts. And yet, the Ministry of Home Affairs remains far from impressed—indeed, it appears rather irritated. And the press, also unusually, has been circumspect about his revelations. The ATS Chief says that he did not want to call a press conference.
Delhi Police’s Delaying Tactics to Evade Prosecution in False Frame ups
Submitted by admin on Wed, 2011-12-07 12:11In 2005, the Delhi Police claimed that they had arrested six Kashmiri terrorists after a fierce encounter on the NH 8 (near the IGI airport). The police claimed that the arrested men were terrorists who were coming to Delhi from the Jaipur side to plant bombs at the Palam airport. They claimed to have recovered a fake army uniform, hand grenades, AK 47s and cash from the men. Earlier this year, a lower court in Dwarka acquitted all of them of every charge and instead noted that the accused were falsely framed.
Shame on G.K. Pillai: Women Demand an Apology for his Sexist Comments
Submitted by admin on Thu, 2011-11-24 04:37Stung by the SIT report which concluded that Ishrat was executed in cold blood, former Union Home Secretary G.K. Pillai—hard-pressed to defend his affidavit to the Supreme Court that Ishrat was a Lashkar operative—has stooped to now slandering the girl’s personal life suggesting that her checking into different hotels with “another man” was definitely suspicious. Perhaps, Mr. Pillai wishes us to believe that all those young women who travel and work independently are ‘suspicious’ and could have terrorist links.
JTSA Welcomes the SIT Report on Ishrat Jahan: Demands a Free and Fair Probe into Batla House ‘Encounter’
Submitted by admin on Mon, 2011-11-21 04:36JTSA welcomes the SIT report which has concluded that the teenaged college girl Ishrat Jahan and her three companions were killed in cold blood—and were not terrorists on way to kill Narendra Modi.