Human rights defender Hany Babu arrested
On 28 July 2020, human rights defender Hany Babu was arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in Mumbai. He is now the twelfth accused arrested for his alleged involvement in the violence that broke-out at Bhima Koregan on 1 January 2018. On the day following his arrest, Hany Babu was presented before a special court and has since been sent to seven days in NIA custody.
Hany Babu is a human rights defender and an associate professor, at the department of English, Delhi University. His areas of specialisation include policy, linguistic identity, marginalised languages and social justice. The human rights defender recently published an academic paper on ‘Unequal rights: Freedom, equality, life and liberty of citizens and others’. Hany Babu is a strong advocate of Dalit rights and has been actively helping underprivileged Dalit students obtain their scholarships and reserved seats at University. He has also been leading the defence team seeking the release of incarcerated human rights defender G N Saibaba.
On 28 July 2020, human rights defender Hany Babu was arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in Mumbai. He is now the twelfth accused arrested for his alleged involvement in the violence that broke-out at Bhima Koregan on 1 January 2018. On the day following his arrest, Hany Babu was presented before a special court and has since been sent to seven days in NIA custody.
Hany Babu is a human rights defender and an associate professor, at the department of English, Delhi University. His areas of specialisation include policy, linguistic identity, marginalised languages and social justice. The human rights defender recently published an academic paper on ‘Unequal rights: Freedom, equality, life and liberty of citizens and others’. Hany Babu is a strong advocate of Dalit rights and has been actively helping underprivileged Dalit students obtain their scholarships and reserved seats at University. He has also been leading the defence team seeking the release of incarcerated human rights defender G N Saibaba.
On 28 July 2020, Hany Babu was arrested by the NIA for allegedly “propagating Naxal activities and Maoist ideology” and for being a co-conspirator in the violence that broke out in Bhima Koregaon. The defender was called in to Mumbai for interrogation on 24 July, to support the investigation as a witness. During this time, he was thoroughly questioned about his relationship with the other accused in the case and was also threatened with arrest. It was after five whole days of interrogation, that the defender was formally arrested, only for the NIA to seek further custodial interrogation.
The day following his arrest, on 29 July 2020, a special court in Mumbai ordered the human rights defender be sent to seven days in NIA custody for further interrogation. During the court session, the public prosecutor alleged that the defender was linked to the banned group, Communist Party of India (Maoist) and claimed that various incriminating letters were recovered from electronic devices seized from him. However, details of this evidence, including the cloned copy of his hard disks were not presented.
The judicial harassment of the defender started in 2019. On 10 September 2019, police personnel had conducted a warrant- less raid at his home and seized several items. Hany Babu was not given an inventory of the items, leaving them vulnerable to tampering. Again, on 2 August 2020, after the defender was arrested, his home was raided, this time by the NIA. They seized leaflets, booklets and a cash ledger of the defence team of Prof. GN Saibaba, and an external hard drive and two pen drives. While his family asked for the cash value of the electronic storage devices to be given, the search team refused to provide the same.
The arrest of Hany Babu and the continued incarceration of the eleven others accused in the Bhima Koregaon case isa direct reprisal for their peaceful human rights work. The arrests continue to take place during the COVID-19 pandemic, despite the risks that imprisoned human rights defenders face in this context. The defender suffers from several health issues including hypertension and Type 2 Diabetes, which putshis life at risk under the current circumstances.
Front Line Defenders has previously issued appeals to Indian authorities seeking the unconditional release of all those arrested. It had also expressed concerns over the health of the accused in the current context of the pandemic, seeing most of them fall in the ‘at-risk’ category, specifically asking for immediate attention on the health condition of Varavara Rao.
Front Line Defenders condemns the arrest of Hany Babu and the continued incarceration of Varavara Rao, Sudha Bhardwaj, Vernon Gonsalves, Gautam Navlakha, Arun Ferreira, Sudhir Dhawale, Rona Wilson, Shoma Sen, Anand Teltumbde, Mahesh Raut and Surendra Gadling, as it believes they are in direct reprisal for their peaceful human rights work on behalf of the most marginalized communities in India.
