Left Condemns Police Action

Date: 
Friday, July 12, 2002

Press Statement

The Left parties -- CPI(M), CPI, RSP and Forward Bloc -- which met at A.K.G. Bhawan today have issued the following statement:

The Left parties strongly condemn the manner in which certain senior editors of respected journals, medical doctors, litterateurs and civil rights activists were picked up by the police without either an arrest warrant or any other legal procedure. Such arbitrary highhandedness of the police is a gross violation of the democratic and fundamental rights of citizens enshrined in our Constitution.

These people were meeting at the heart of New Delhi to discuss the restoration of the political process of dialogue in troubled areas in Nepal. This is an issue that directly concerns India and a large number of Indian people. This certainly does not constitute any violation of any law.

The Left parties decry the fact that, of late, the police under the present BJP dispensation has been resorting to such highhanded arbitrariness, which is violative of elementary civil rights and symptomatic of fascistic authoritarianism.

The meeting was attended by Harkishan Singh Surjeet, Sitaram Yechury (CPI-M), A.B. Bardhan (CPI), Abani Roy (RS)) and Debabrata Biswas (Forward Bloc).