CHITRANGADA CHOUDHURY: Why An Aged Defender Of The Deprived Faces Terror Charges

By Dilip -

On 24 June 2008, Damodar Turi, a Jharkhand land-rights activist and a Dalit was arrested by the Ranchi police and accused of sedition and waging war against India. State coordinator of a coalition of anti-displacement movements across Jharkhand called Visthapan Virodhi Jan Vikas Andolan, Turi was 28 when he faced charges of being a terrorist under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), 1967, a vaguely worded law that places the burden of innocence on the accused and allows prolonged incarceration without bail. 

"The police alleged that I was a Maoist and claimed to have recovered Maoist literature and pamphlets from my home - an allegation with no truth,” Turi, now 39 years old, told Article 14. The authorities also accused the Andolan of being a front organisation of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) party. Turi spent nine months in prison before a judge granted him bail, for which his family had to raise Rs 20,000. On 12 December 2019, over 11 years after he was arrested, a Ranchi court acquitted Turi, saying “the prosecution failed to bring home the charges levelled against the accused”.

While he faced these allegations, Turi recalled, among the people who stood by him were Father Stan Swamy, an 83-year-old Jesuit priest and one of Jharkhand’s most prominent human-rights activists.  On 8 October, Swamy was himself arrested under the same law that he defended Turi against, the UAPA, and became the 16th and oldest on a list of professors and human-rights defenders to be arrested by the National Investigative Agency (NIA) jailed as suspects in what has come to be called the Bhima-Koregaon case.

Swamy’s profile is similar to those of the others arrested: all were involved in advocating for justice for oppressed communities (here, here and here). Turi’s 16-year-old relationship with Swamy is testimony to some of that work….

https://www.article-14.com/post/why-an-aged-defender-of-the-deprived-faces-terror-charges?fbclid=IwAR3DjC2b2GLIuQhCBk2v6IAPpwraQWEWuTaUwtarOl_T9DH0Kuz6UP3fdZ8

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