Even as the Planning Commission sought to distance itself from its proposed definition of the poverty line, the police raided the Jaipur house of a leading rights activist who filed a pertinent case that triggered the whole controversy.
PUCL general secretary Kavita Srivastava’s residence in the Rajasthan capital was searched on Monday by the Special Task Force Police, soon inviting protests from the civil society. Top NAC members Aruna Roy, Harsh Mander and Jean Dreze flayed the “arbitrary” action against Srivastava, who is the convenor of the Right to Food Campaign’s steering group.
It was around 6.30 am that a large armed contingent, led by Deputy SP Rajendra Singh Shekhawat, descended on Srivastava’s house, claiming to be looking for a “dangerous Naxalite”. Srivastava was absent at her house, and the police allegedly ended up harassing her 82-year-old father and two domestic helps.
The raid was apparently conducted at the behest of the Chhattisgarh police, with the help of a “warrant” that merely carried Srivastava’s address and the word abhiyukt (accused). “This is yet another instance of harassment of human rights workers under the cover of fighting Naxalism,” the NAC members said in a statement.
They said this wasn’t the first time the Chhattisgarh government had been “harrassing” Srivastava, “a tireless defender of human rights for many years” — all of it “under the garb of fighting Naxalism”. The three activists, along with Annie Raja and Anuradha Talwar, demanded an unconditional apology from the Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh police for their action.