[Reader-list] Gautam Navlakha - a Maoist?

[Aditya Raj Kaul]

*3 civil rights activists in Kobad chargesheet*

*Staff Reporter | New Delhi*

*PTI and Pioneer*

*Link -
http://www.dailypioneer.com/237681/3-civil-rights-activists-in-Kobad-chargesheet.html
*

Three civil rights activists were named as Naxal sympathisers in a
chargesheet filed by the police against top Maoist leader Kobad Ghandy,
prompting a sharp reaction from the organisations they belong to.

The names of former PUDR secretary Gautam Naulakha, Committee for the
Release of Political Prisoners spokesperson Rona Wilson, and Revolutionary
Democratic Front (RDF) deputy secretary GN Saibaba are also named in the
chargesheet for meeting Ghandy ahead and after his arrest in Delhi.

Police had on Friday filed a chargesheet running into over 800 pages against
Ghandy, a Politburo member of the banned CPI (Maoist) arrested in September
last year from Delhi, in which the names of civil rights activists and some
organisations appeared. People's Union of Democratic Rights (PUDR), People's
Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL) and Association for Protection of Democratic
Rights (APDR) are the organisations which were mentioned in the chargesheet
accusing them of helping Maoists.

The chargesheet said that Maoists are active among students and have
established front organisations other than forming a trade union which is
active in Okhla Industrial Area. Naulakha, Wilson and Saibaba termed their
being named in the chargesheet as "laughable, utter rubbish, ridiculous" and
an attempt to "muzzle dissident voices in a democracy". Saibaba is accused
of having a role in passing of a resolution of CPI (Maoist) on its tactical
counter strategy and sheltering top Naxal leaders in the national Capital.
He claimed that the chargesheet was completely fabricated.

"This is height of imagination. This is to implicate me. I move on a
wheelchair. How can I participate in a military action from Delhi and that
too, sitting on a wheelchair?" he said claiming that he has never met
Ghandy.

The chargesheet has also said Naulakha met Ghandy ahead of his arrest in
Delhi, an allegation denied by the civil rights activist. "I have met Ghandy
in jail after his arrest. But it is rubbish to say that I have met him
before. As a civil rights activists, I would have liked to meet Ghandy
before he was arrested," Dhaulaka has said to PTI.

He said the naming of organisations and civil rights activists in the
chargesheet was "ridiculous" and an attempt to silence voices against
Government.

Wilson said it was a "standard strategy" to "brow-beat" all kinds of voices
which disagree with the Government, which wants to "profile people and
organisations" taking up the cause of rights violation as anti-national. "I
have met Ghandy in the jail. It is on record. Such kinds of things are meant
to stigmatise people's protest," he said. A senior police official said the
names were included in the chargesheet after investigations. In the
chargesheet, police claimed that Ghandy had close links with Maoists in
Nepal.

The investigators also claimed Ghandy had confessed before Andhra Pradesh
police of being involved in at least two Naxal attacks in Jharkhand in
December 2006 and April 2007.