Letter 'concocted' to criminalise me, rights activist: Sudha Bharadwaj

Sudha Bharadwaj, one of the five activists arrested in multi-city raids by the Maharashtra Police, has outrightly rejected the claims made by the investigating agency and said a purported letter implicating her was "totally concocted" to criminalise her and human rights organisations.

The police had Friday claimed that Bharadwaj had written to one "Com. Prakash".

Reacting to this in a handwritten statement, Bharadwaj, who is under house arrest, said Friday the purported letter shown by the Pune Police is a "mixture of innocuous and publicly available facts and baseless fabrication".

Various legal and democratic activities such as meetings, seminars, protests have been sought to be de-legitimised by alleging that they are funded by Maoists, she said.

Bharadwaj claimed a number of human rights lawyers, activists and organisations were deliberately named to cast a stigma over them, obstruct their work and incite hatred against them.

"It is a totally concocted letter fabricated to criminalise me and other human rights lawyers, activists and organisations," she claimed.

The activist-lawyer said the "fabricated letter" had not been brought before either before the Pune Court or the Faridabad Chief Judicial Magistrate while seeking to "whisk" her to Pune.

In a media briefing Friday, the police had released details of seized letters related to five activists arrested in June in connection with the Bhima Koregoan violence that took place in January.

The police also claimed they have "conclusive proof" to link Left-wing activists arrested in June and this week to Maoists, saying one of them spoke of a "Rajiv Gandhi-type event to end Modi-raj".

Early this week, the police raided the homes of activists and lawyers from five states---Varavara Rao in Hyderabad, Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira in Mumbai, Bharadwaj in Fariadabad and Gautam Navalakha in Delhi.

Bharadwaj said she knew Navalakha as a "senior and respected" human rights activist whose name has been mentioned "in a manner to criminalise and incite hatred" against him.

The activist-lawyer also said she knew the Jagdalpur Legal Aid Group well and had never solicited any funds from them, least of all from any banned organisation.