Indian writer Arundhati Roy threatened with prosecution under anti-terrorism law

[Hannah Bell]

Police in the east Indian state of Chhattisgarh are “exploring” laying charges under the state’s draconian anti-terrorism law against Arundhati Roy, a Booker Prize-winning novelist, essayist and human rights campaigner.

The police initiated their investigation of Roy in response to a complaint filed by one Viswajit Mitra that accused Roy of “glorifying Maoists” in an article published in the March 29 issue of Outlook India. Titled “Walking with the Comrades,” Roy’s 33-page magazine article reports on a clandestine visit she made to Dandakaranya, a forest highland area largely inhabited by tribal people or adivasi, so that she could speak with, and bear witness to, the activities of Maoist guerrillas...

Chhattisgarh’s director general of police (DGP), Viswa Ranjan, told the press, “The matter shall be investigated before taking any further steps.… I have asked the legal experts to give their opinion and come up with a decision." That the DGP believes Mitra’s outrageous anti-democratic “complaint” has merit was exemplified by his further remarks. “I do not know,” said Ranjan, “whether Arundhati Roy has been wrongly influenced by others or she is actually a mole in the civil society. How do I know?"

Roy is threatened with prosecution under Chhattisgarh’s notorious Special Public Security Act (2005) or CPSA. The law, which was authored by the Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), provides a sweeping definition of “unlawful activities.”


http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/apr2010/aroy-a26.shtml

[nosmokes]

1. OFFS!

This Ranjan cat must be a real live douchebag for to be stooping this low.

[anigbrowl]

2. these guerillas killed about 75 police earlier this month nt

[nosmokes]

3. are you trying to say Roy had anything to do with that? because I'll

say you're a bald faced lying weasel to even intimate such an outrageous claim.

[greyl]

4. Looks like a simple statement of fact to me. nt