“Every time I visit her in jail, she asks if I have arranged a lawyer for her bail… She keeps crying and wonders if she will be able to take her upcoming exams… Even murderers have lawyers to fight their cases, but my little sister is languishing in jail because no lawyer is willing to take her case,” said Sahira, Sonu Mansuri’s elder sister, who was arrested last month on the basis of a complaint filed by lawyers affiliated with Hindutva outfits.

Sonu Mansuri is a 21-year-old law intern, who had been attending and observing court proceedings in the Indore district court and assisting her seniors on a regular basis for the last five months. However, on January 28, she was the subject of a viral video in which she was surrounded by a group of lawyers who grabbed her collar, grilled her, searched her, and labeled her a PFI agent.

The lawyers had alleged that they discovered over Rs 1 lakh in cash in her pockets. The said lawyers then filed a police report accusing her of impersonating a lawyer while using funds from the banned Popular Front of India (PFI). Mansuri was arrested on the same day, and the media ran stories highlighting the accusations put on Mansuri, sans her perspective. While branding Mansuri a PFI agent, a section of the media did not even bother to seek her or her family’s response.

At the MG Road police station, an FIR was filed under IPC sections 419 (punishment for cheating by personation), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), and 120-B (criminal conspiracy). Mansuri is being held in the Indore Central Jail under judicial custody.

One month later, the same group of lawyers is allegedly preventing others from arguing for Mansuri’s bail, according to the report published by the Newslaundry report. The initial counsel, who filed her bail petition, has not appeared at the four hearings this month, and the court had eventually dismissed her bail plea on February 27.

1.How true are the allegations levied against her?

The alleged wad of cash found on her:

A student at the Dewas government law college, Sonu was interning under senior lawyer Noor Jahan Khan. While talking to Newslaudary, it was revealed that the cash was found on Mansuri was given to her by one of Khan’s clients, Asif Ansari. He had also provided a statement to the MG Road police station confirming this.

“I am a client of Noor Jahan. She was handling my check bounce case. She had instructed me to submit Rs 1,26,000 for stamp duty and other legal requirements. “I went to court on January 28 to give her the money, but she was not there and asked me to give it to her intern Sonu Mansuri,” Asif Ansari had said, as reported by the Newslaundry.

Mansuri’s elder brother, Iqbal Mansuri, had also said that she is “the only one in our family who has been this educated and is pursuing a good career. We only met her once after she was arrested. She said she went to court on the orders of her superior and collected the money from the client. We don’t understand the allegations… The cops also failed to show us anything. She is being trapped.”

2.Allegations of Impersonation and video recordings

Reporters from Newslaundary had spoken to the lawyers from the Indore court and were privy to the matter. One of the lawyers familiar with the situation had said, “The main charge against her is that she was pretending to be a lawyer. She has never claimed to be a lawyer. Anyone with a passing knowledge of the law understands that only lawyers wear neck bands. If she had pretended to be a lawyer, she would have worn the band to court, but she didn’t. No one in the Indore district court is willing to hear her case as lawyers are under pressure.”

According to another senior lawyer familiar with the activities of the bar association, no such video of the court proceedings was found in Sonu’s phone.

“Even if we consider that she recorded the proceedings, the judge was the only authority with the authority to take action against her. Those lawyers had no right or authority to harass her and have her arrested… “She would have definitely been noticed by the judges if she had been recording the court proceedings over the last five months,” said a lawyer who was in the Indore court on January 28, as was reported by the Newslaundary.

No representation for Mansuri in Bail case

According to Newslaundry, the case against Mansuri was only ostensibly linked to a section of the lawyers’ anger toward a Supreme Court advocate whom they assumed was linked to Mansuri. Over the last five months that Mansuri had been visiting the Indore district court to observe court proceedings, she was linked to Supreme Court lawyer Ehtesham Hashmi – an eyesore for Hindutva activists for his legal support in several sensitive cases. Last year, Hashmi obtained bail for a bangle seller who had been thrashed by Hindutva activists for allegedly concealing his Muslim identity. That case sparked outrage, with Madhya Pradesh home minister Narottam Mishra alleging that the man had Pakistani connections on social media.

And, on the day Mansuri was arrested on suspicion of spying for PFI, she had followed the Supreme Court lawyer outside the court after a hearing in a case involving a Bajrang Dal leader. During the trial, Hashmi was threatened on the court grounds by these lawyers.

It is being reported that Mansuri’s family has approached several lawyers since her arrest, including two from Indore, two from Khargone, and a team of four from Delhi, but none of them have been able to contest her bail petition.

“It’s not safe to appear for her openly,” a lawyer had told Newslaundry under the condition of anonymity. “They are extremely vengeful and may target anyone appearing in court on her behalf. Nobody wants to put their lives in danger,” as was reported by the Newslaundry.

“It’s unfortunate, but we’re powerless,” another lawyer said, as reported by Newslaundry. “We must work here; we cannot oppose them. No one wants to take a chance because they are afraid of being physically attacked.”

Amit Shrivastav, a Supreme Court lawyer, was among a group of lawyers who traveled to Indore to argue for Mansuri’s bail, but they were forced to return due to fears of an attack by local lawyers. He has petitioned the Supreme Court for the dismissal of the FIR against Mansuri and an investigation into her arrest by a sitting or retired high court judge. The petition also requests bail for Mansuri and security at the court compound and in Indore for the petitioners.

Advocate Shrivastav had also asserted that her Muslim identity is a major factor is this case. “Everyone knew Sonu was a Muslim who worked for Noor Jahan. She was singled out solely because of her identity. News organisations reported her as a PFI agent without verifying her identity. We want the police to look into the matter thoroughly because everything has happened with biases so far,” he previously told Newslaundry.

Conclusion

On February 19, Mansuri had missed the first paper of her second year final exams. Her sister, Sahira, had provided, “She is concerned about her career and her law exams. She requested books for study, but authorities refused unless we obtained permission from the court. My brother went to her college to ask if she could sit for exams, but the college officials told us that we needed permission from the court.”

Every Muslim person who deems to stand against the communally divisive agenda of the Hindutva outfits are facing consequences. From the information provided above, it can be easily deduced that there is no substantial case against Mansuri. She is just another target of the Hindutva group politics. From the police siding with the Hindutva goons and detaining the 21 year old on the same day that the FIR was filed, to the media portraying only a one-sided narrative, it is clear that Mansuri is a victim of communal oppression that has been increasing in the current times.

It is worrisome to note that advocates, even after being aware of the reality behind the false charges filed against Mansuri, are either not willing or not able to fight for her right to get bail. Today, a young woman, a budding lawyer, has been illegally detained under false charges owing to her Muslim identity. The truth behind these false revengeful tactics cannot be clearer. The power of the Hindutva goons are such that even the ones who are fighting to protect the innocents are themselves being scared into silence.

Many human rights defenders, activists and lawyers are languishing in jail for fighting against this state-sanctioned attack on individuals belonging to the Muslim community. From Umar Khalid, Sarfoora Zargar, Sharjeel Imam, Asif Tanha, Gulfisha Fatima, Kahlid Saifi, Muslim young activists have been targeted again and again. Hopefully, Sonu Mansuri does not remain another casualty of this oppressive and fascist regime.

Related:

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India Cries for Justice

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An advocate was shot dead inside the district court complex in Uttar Pradesh’s Shahjahanpur district today, on October 18 at around 11:30 A.M. As per a LiveLaw report, the lawyer who has been identified as Bhupendra Singh, was reportedly speaking to someone else in court when he was shot by an unknown person. The reason behind this shooting is yet to be ascertained.

However, S. Anand, Superintendent of Police, Shahjahanpur, has said, “According to initial reports, it appears the man was alone. No other person was seen around him at the time of the incident. The forensic team is at work…Circumstances around killing are unclear.”

According to The Quint, police forces were deployed to control the situation following the firing that took place on the third floor of the court complex. Several lawyers on the site said that the incident was a huge lapse in security.

Just days ago, on September 24, three people including Gangster Jitender Gogi, who was being produced in court, were killed during an attack. According to news reports, Gogi was shot dead by members of a rival gang who had barged into the Rohini court. The attackers were then gunned down by the police officers in “immediate counterfire”. The assailants were “dressed as lawyers” and opened fire at him. It has been reported that a judge, lawyers and many others were also present in the courtroom when the gunshots were fired.

Eventually, the Delhi high court bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh took suo moto cognisance of this incident, calling it a “grave matter”. As per media reports, the bench impleaded the Commissioner of Delhi Police, Ministry of Home Affairs and the Union Law Ministry as parties.

Related:

Gunbattle in Delhi Court, 3 dead, many injured
Uttar Pradesh: Dalit school children thrashed, made to sit separately in Amethi

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Lucknow: 32 year old lawyer Shishir Tripathi beaten to death in Krishna Nagar late last night by five people. One accused arrested. Police has sent body for post-mortem (ANI). Lawyer Shishir Tripathi’s family to get Rs 2 lakh ex-gratia from Dist. Admin, Rs 50,000 each from Lucknow Bar Association & Central Bar Association. Case registered. 1 police personnel suspended for negligence.1 person arrested, police raids underway at 45 locations to nab 4 accused

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Image Courtesy: deccanchronicle.com

The Chhattisgarh Unit of People’s Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL) has strongly condemned the efforts by communal groups to communalize interreligious marriages as ‘love jihad’ while pledging support to unions between two consenting adults irrespective of their class, caste, race, religion, nationality or sexuality.

Taking cognizance of the current controversy around the marriage of Anjali Jain with Ibrahim Siddiqui who converted to Aryan Arya, PUCL is alarmed to note the persecution faced by Anjali for exercising her freedom to choose her partner; and also the violence meted out to her lawyers Priyanka Shukla and MoinuddinQuraishi, for helping her in the exercise of her rights.

Ibrahim and Anjali got legally married in February 2018. At the time, Ibrahim was already married, but estranged from his wife whom he subsequently divorced. He later converted to Hinduism, for he had anticipated trouble and wanted to quell all allegations of ‘love jihad’.

Peddled by Hindutva groups, ‘love jihad’ has long been used to falsely claim that young Muslim men have been systematically seducing impressionable Hindu women with a view to converting them to Islam.

Ibrahim, now Aryan Arya, married his bride secretly in the Arya Samaj tradition and obtained their marriage certificate from Raipur. Once the details of their marriage went public, Anjali’s father who was hitherto unaware of the union, immediately separated the two and allegedly beat up his daughter and gave her medicines which caused epileptic seizures.

She was also taken away to unknown locations to be kept away from Ibrahim, but a habeas corpus petition in the Bilaspur High Court filed by him saw her being found by the police and produced in court. There, she accepted that she had married Ibrahim of her own free will as an adult and wanted to live life with him. She wanted to go back to her husband, but the court sent her away to a women’s hostel in Bilaspur. Communal organizations said that the court had given her an option to stay with her parents but she denied it because she was under a ‘mysterious spell’ and mentally unstable.

The Jain Samaj took out rallies and marches and even held a Chhattisgarh bandh in protest of this union that they branded as ‘love jihad’.
Later, on a First Information Report (FIR) lodged by her father, Ibrahim was arrested on charges of conning Anjali.

The couple stands separated to this date.

Priyanka Shukla, Ibrahim’s lawyer, who tried to meet with Anjali at the hostel, was chased away by DSP Mamta Sharma and additional SP Richa Mishra. Shukla was manhandled and Anjali was threatned by the police duo. Shukla lodged a complaint against the officers at the city Kotwali and planned to raise the issue with the Bar Council.

PUCL questioned the presence of Mishra at the hostel and why she and her colleague prevented her from meeting her lawyers, apart from women’s rights activists Swati Manav and Kumud. It had come to light that the police also allowed people from various religious organizations to meet her against her will, who tried to pressure her into leaving Ibrahim, albeit unsuccessfully.

This is not the first incident in the country where interreligious married couples have been accused of ‘love jihad’.

Recently, the case of Sakshi Mishra, the daughter of a BJP MLA from Uttar Pradesh surfaced, where she claimed that she was being terrorized for marrying a man of a lower caste.   In the case of the daughter of a former MLA SurendraNath Singh from Bhopal, who wanted to marry a man from a different community, the father claimed that she was mentally disturbed and blamed the Muslim Congress MLA for encouraging “love jihad”. In Mhow (Madhya Pradesh) last year, a 27 year-old Hindu woman was pressured into breaking her marriage with a Muslim man by her parents and their lawyers in a meeting in the chambers of a High Court Judge, because her marriage would create “a law and order issue” in the area.

Chhattisgarh, with its nexus of powerful political families, has especially been a hotbed of such incidents.

In context of the current case, PUCL Chhattisgarh makes the following demands-

1. While Anjali stays in the Sakhi Center Raipur awaiting further court orders, she should be allowed to meet anyone she chooses.
2. Taking the threats against Anjali and Ibrahim seriously, the couple should be provided complete security.
3. The physical attack against Advocate Priyanka Shukla and MoinuddinQuraishi should be promptly investigated, and departmental inquiry against Durg district Radio SP Richa Mishra should be immediately initiated.

These barbaric incidents, barbaric because they violate the basic freedoms of love and expression, are a mirror to what the government plans to make ‘new India’ look like. Fascist, communal, right-wing, Hindutva organizations have consistently been spreading bigotry and hatred between communities. The casteist patriarchy that threatens the well-being of two mature, consenting individuals in love, is what is threating the social fabric of our country.

PUCL vehemently dissents against this false narrative of love and we at Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) stand with it to vehemently dispel the same.

Related:
Inferiority Complex Fuels Hindutvavadi Lust for Kashmiri Women
Religious freedom conditions in India on a downward trend in 2018: US Commission on International Religious Freedom
Jaipur hotel denies room to inter-faith couple
FIR Lodged Against Family Members in Pune’s Inter-Caste Couple Case
Protect the Girl From Kin: Bombay HC to Police in a Petition by a Maratha Girl Alleging Threat to Life for Relation with a SC Boy
 

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In an important development in the investigation of rationalist Dr Narendra Dabholkar’s murder case, Central Bureau of Investigation arrested Sanjeev Punalekar on Saturday in Mumbai. Punalekar is a lawyer for Sanatan Sanstha, an organisation which has been under the scanner for terror activities. Punalekar along with his assistant Vikram Bhave has been arrested and will be produced to Pune Court on Sunday. Dabholkar was murdered on August 20, 2013, during his morning walk in Pune. His was the first in a series of murders of rationalists that followed in Maharashtra and Karnataka, including Govind Pansare, MM Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh.

Sanatan Sanstha is a right wing organisation spread across Maharashtra, Karnataka and Goa. Punalekar being their lawyer had defended all the accused in the case including Virendra Tawde, Sachin Andure, Sharad Kalaskar, Amol Kale and others. One of the accused in this case, Rakesh Pangera has got bail but is under custody of Karnataka ATS for the Gauri Lankesh case.

Punalekar has also defended the Sanatan Sanstha and its activities on almost all television news channels, debates, press conferences and elsewhere. He has also defended Sanatan Sanstha’s alleged activists Sarang Akolkar and others in Margao and Panaji bomb blast case, which had taken place in 2009. His arrest in the Dabholkar case is one of the most important development of recent times.

CBI’s Additional Superintendent of Police S R Singh has confirmed the arrest of both. He said that the both of them will be produced in Pune court on Sunday, where the CBI will seek their custody.

Dabholkar was known for his rationalism and activism against various superstitious beliefs. He had founded Maharashtra Andhshraddha Nirmulan Samiti, an organisation against superstitions, and was the torch bearer of progressive and secular values.

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum

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Here he is with the stalwart Lal Krsihna Advani

Chauhan has also posted pictures of him standing next to senior-most BJP leaders such as JP Nadda, Nirmala Sitharaman, Anurag Thankur, Sushil Modi, Dharmendra Pradhan and Kailash Vijaywargiya.

A  post on the page is in Hindi, dated October 26, 2015 announces that he has a filed a writ petition in the Delhi High Court against what he calls the “media’s provocative and misleading strategy”. He calls on readers to post instances of the media promoting news in a wrong light. “Har jagah gandagi phaila rakha hai in logon ne, aayo inko sabak sikhayen (These people have defiled the atmosphere everywhere, let’s teach them a lesson),” he goes on to add.

Here are the interesting pictures

Meanwhile, a  lawyers’ body in Delhi district courts today virtually came out in defence of the attackers in black robes in the Patiala House courts, including Vikram Singh Chauhan who was garlanded in Karkardooma courts, to whose bar he belongs. Claiming that certain “outsiders” in lawyers’ robes indulged in violence, the Cordination Committee of all District Court Bar Associations demanded a “fair” inquiry into the incidents. In a shameful expression of defiance in the Karkardooma courts, lawyers held a candle light march for national integrity and against “victimisation” of lawyers. Chauhan, who has been bragging on social media about how the lawyers had taught “anti-nationals” a lesson in Patiala House complex, was reportedly garlanded.
 

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