Letters

To, Editor/Chief Reporter

Sub: Illegal arrests, torture and public statements by ATS Mumbai with regard to Shridhar Shrinivasan, Vernon Gonsalves and Adv K D Rao We are deeply concerned at reports from the lawyers, family members and friends of Shridhar Srinivasan, Vernon Gonsalves and advocate K. D. Rao, who were arrested on August 19 and 20, 2007, in Mumbai by Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) Police. The gist of their claims is as follows: 1. These persons have been arrested for their political convictions rather than any specific unlawful activity. Rao is a practicing lawyer and an office bearer of Indian Association of People’s Lawyers (IAPL) who has been in Mumbai from 2003. The families of these detainees were not informed of their arrests by the ATS police. Shrinivasan was arrested outside his house in Govandi and Gonsalves was arrested from near his house at Andheri at 1.30 p.m. on August 19 from a busy public road. Almost 12 hours later at 12.30 a.m. on August 20, Gonsalves was brought to his house where an illegal and unauthorized `raid’ was carried out till 7 a.m. in front of Susan Abraham, his wife who is a practicing lawyer and activist and his 12-year old son. Rao was arrested at 9 p.m. on August 20 from outside YMCA where he had gone to visit Adv P A Sebastian. 2. Srinivasan and Gonsalves were subjected to torture which was recorded by the magistrate. In court, the injuries on the accused, and their inability to stand up in court, have been ascribed to such improbable causes as their struggle at the time of arrest, to arthritis osteoporosis - conditions the detainees were suffering from which got aggravated due to the torture. They have had to undergo prolonged hours of interrogation for days together. 3. In the case of Srinivasan and Gonsalves, the ATS claimed to have found arms and ammunition from the former’s house in Govandi. However, no panchanama was produced for these items, and the accused denied ATS claims in Court. On the first date of regular remand, court gave permission for the destruction of the ammunition because of which the detainees have been denied the scope to challenge the central evidence on which the police case rests. In the first week after the arrests, the police have announced that “over half a dozen lawyers are on our radar” and further that they “will take action soon” on 75 persons because they are deemed to be sympathetic with the cause of the accused. Such repeated attempts to intimidate lawyers, and activists etc is condemnable to say the least. We do not know the ideology, affiliations or activities of the accused, and we may not sympathise with them. But we say we are a democratic country governed by the rule of law. These actions by the State violate the rule of law. We condemn the methods and the means which is followed by the ATS and other special cells, as if they are not bound by the law and as if they had a separate law for themselves and as if the detainees have no civil rights. We want to emphasize that there is no special law for the ATS or any special cell in the matter of arrest and search and in the matter of legal rights of the accused. We also want to emphasize that there are no special laws for detainees belonging to different ideologies. Against this background, we demand that torture and all the illegal methods listed above are not employed on the arrested persons and that false cases are not foisted on them simply for following their political beliefs or sympathies. The police should stop threatening lawyers who are representing the detainees and other activists/citizens who decry police excesses. In a word, the rule of law and ensure that the law must be upheld if we are a true democracy, it must be recognized that all detainees, whatever political hue they may belong to have a right to be defended and we must ensure that our laws meet the needs of justice. (signed)/- 1. Justice H Suresh 2. Mihir Desai, Advocate, Bombay High Court 3. Shyam Gaekwad, Organising Secretary, RPI 4. Sagar Sarhadi 5. Anthony Samy, LHS