Protest over police from other State detaining activists-OxBig News Network

A delegation comprising lawyers, students, and activists held a protest demonstration outside the state police headquarters on Thursday. The delegation demanded action against police from other states who allegedly flouted rules while making arrests in Karnataka and that the police take action against hate speeches in the state.

A memorandum submitted to the State police chief claimed that Delhi Police tried to intimidate and pick up civil rights activist Nadeem Khan, National Secretary of the Association for Protection of Civil Rights (APCR). They also highlighted how fact-checker Mohammed Zubair, was also recently booked in a FIR. “Delhi Police and the UP Police are conducting a targeted witch-hunt of human rights activists,” the memorandum alleged.

“The FIR and criminal investigations are clearly being used as a tool of harassment to silence human rights work. This is to create a chilling effect of fear and prevent individuals from taking up issues of the violation amongst minorities and other communities. Karnataka Police must not be a party to such lawless behaviour,” the memorandum said. “The sequence of events underscores concerns about procedural violations, intimidation tactics, and misuse of power by law enforcement,” it further said.

This is not the first time that police of another state have come to Karnataka to detain someone here illegally. In Disha Ravi’s case, the Delhi police illegally detained her from Bengaluru, the memorandum stated. “This is an attack on federal principles of governance that a State Police of another State without intimation to the persons named as accused or cooperation from the jurisdictional police is emboldened to take such arbitrary, illegal actions outside their jurisdiction,” the memorandum said.