New Delhi, Dec 9, (dpa/GNA) – Prominent Indian human rights activist and lawyer, Sudha Bharadwaj, was released from prison on Thursday on bail, three years after she was arrested on charges of conspiring to incite caste violence in a village in western India.
Bharadwaj is one of 16 people – including human rights activists, lawyers and academics – who were arrested between 2018 and 2020 under an anti-terror law and charged with inciting violence and other crimes, including supporting Maoist rebels.
The Bombay High Court granted bail to Bharadwaj on technical grounds on December 1. India’s anti-terror National Investigative Agency challenged it in the Supreme Court, but was turned down.
Only one of the others – 81-year-old poet-activist Varavara Rao – is out on bail on health grounds, the rest are still in jail. The case is yet to go to trial.
Among those arrested was tribal rights activist and Jesuit priest 84-year-old Stan Swamy, who died in jail earlier this year after he was repeatedly refused bail.
As part of stringent bail conditions, Bharadwaj, 60, has to surrender her passport and stay within Mumbai. She cannot leave the city without the court’s permission, talk to the media about her case or make international calls.
It is difficult to get bail under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). Those demanding its repeal claim it has been repeatedly used by governments to arrest, incarcerate and silence their critics.
Only 2.2 per cent of cases registered under the law between the years 2016 and 2019 ended in convictions by court, according to government data presented in Parliament.
GNA