india - CONDEMN THE UNLAWFUL ARREST OF JAYEETA DAS, A PEOPLE’S ACTIVIST! RELEASE JAYEETA DAS UNCONDITIONALLY!

COMMITTEE FOR THE RELEASE OF POLITICAL PRISONERS

185/3, FOURTH FLOOR, ZAKIR NAGAR, NEW DELHI-110025

02/08/2013

CONDEMN THE UNLAWFUL ARREST OF JAYEETA DAS, A PEOPLE’S ACTIVIST!

RELEASE JAYEETA DAS UNCONDITIONALLY!

Once again the Special Task Force (STF) West Bengal have flouted every norms as they picked up Jayeeta Das, a people’s activist who has been active in the democratic and people’s movements in Kolkata, from the Charu market area around 2 pm on Friday August 2013. Later in the evening on the same day the STF raided and ransacked her house without any warrant and intimidated her family members. While all this intimidation was on the family members were kept in the dark about the arrest of Jayeeta Das. The STF further intimidated and forced the family to sign on blank papers. Only through the media did the family come to know that Jayeeta Das has been arrested.

A cursory look into the conduct of STF and similar intelligence agencies in West Bengal and elsewhere in the subcontinent proves beyond doubt the utter disdain for norms and procedures by these agencies. The right to see the warrant as well as the information for the family about the arrest of Jayeeta are fundamental. These norms and procedures are crucial for the detained/arrested as well as her kith and kin as the only way to safeguard oneself from torture, mistreatment let alone to much needed and timely access to a lawyer of her choice. To deny all this and to keep the family members in the dark about her arrest is premeditated from the side of the intelligence agencies so as to force the family (as they were forced to sign blank papers) and the detained into some kind of confession that suits so as to incriminate them.

This is not the first time that such acts of impunity have been committed by the intelligence agencies. On the contrary this has been the set pattern of the modus operandi of these agencies. That too despite several times the highest courts in the subcontinent having taken exception to such criminal conducts of the agencies.

The CRPP strongly condemn such acts of impunity of the STF of West Bengal and demand the unconditional release of Jayeeta Das. We demand that pending her release she be given access to the lawyer of her choice and be produced at the earliest before the court.

In Solidarity,

SAR Geelani

President

Amit Bhattacharyya

Secretary General

Rona Wilson

Secretary, Public Relations