By Pervez Bari
BHOPAL: Speakers at a NCHRO (National Confederation of Human rights organisations), seminar expressed their willingness to provide legal help to activists who have been agitating against the anti-people laws being implemented by the BJP-led NDA Government to throttle democracy in the country.
The seminar titled “People’s Movement and legal aid to activists” was organised here at Durrani Guest House on Sunday by NCHRO.
Speaker after speaker expressing their views in the seminar described these kinds of police investigations illegal and said that it is the responsibility of the lawyer community of the country to come forward for the legal help of these people. In every city, lawyers protecting the Indian Constitution and the country should make a panel and help the activists involved in movements.
Speakers in the seminar said that as long as the people in power don’t revoke the unjust laws and don’t release the activists locked up in jails, their legal aid will continue. For which if the Prime Minister of the country calls the lawyer community “Aandolan-jeevi” then becoming it is acceptable to this community.
Well known senior journalist and writer of the city Lajja Shankar Hardenia said that activists in movements fight for the protection of citizens, write and speak for them; the government fears them and stops them from having their voice reach the public. To shut their voices, they are being put in jails on trumped-up charges.
Expressing views Supreme Court Adv. Kanwalpreet Kaur said: “Today in the country the condition of the activists is worrisome. States under the BJP rule together with the BJP-led Central government have locked them up. The biggest arrest is of the activists who are kept in Tihar jail in the Red Fort case, whom the government has put behind bars on fabricated charges.
In the seminar, Adv. Ansaar Indori said that the fascist Central government wants to install its own agenda and has passed laws against the Adivasis, Minorities and Dalits, against whom it is conspiring. The BJP government wants to send the message that those who are not in agreement with their policies are against the country and are anti-nationals.
While speaking in the seminar, the organisation’s state President Adv. Aradhana Bhargav said that the “Godi” media is completely promoting the anti-people attitude of the government. And that in the country, rights-based activists and people who are part of movements are being targeted. In this way in the Bhima Koregaon case, lawyers, journalists, rights-based activists, women academicians, writers are being trapped on false charges.
Social activist Vijay Kumar said those in this country who speak against the government, are sent to jails after implicating them in made-up cases and trumped-up charges. Activists raising their voices against the citizenship law have been sent behind bars under UAPA, NSA and sedition charges.
In the seminar, apart from the state capital Bhopal, advocates and activists from Indore, Ujjain, Jabalpur, Chhindwara, Sheopur and several other districts of the state along with other distinguished people were present.
Vasid Khan, State general secretary, NCHRO Madhya Pradesh, conducted the proceedings of the seminar with aplomb.