Statements against police raid at GN Saibaba’s house We, the undersigned teachers of Delhi University, wish to express our deep sense of shock and outrage at the treatment meted out by the police to our colleague, Dr. G N Saibaba, Asst. Prof. in English at Ram Lal Anand College. At about 3.00 PM today, a large 50 member team including members of the Maharashtra Police Force, led by Shashi Kumar (Additional SP, Gadchiroli), and Suhas P Bawache (investigating officer. Aheri Police station, Gadchiroli) accompanied by Delhi Police special cell officers and Maurice Nagar police thana police officers, raided the residence of Dr. Saibaba, on the grounds that his residence “is used as a place for the deposit of stolen property”. Dr. Saibaba’s residence is in the University premises, and as such, the university administration is clearly complicit in granting permission for the raid. During the entire course of this completely baseless investigation, Dr. Saibaba and his family, including his minor fifteen year-old daughter, were kept in custody in his house and prevented from either making or receiving calls, or meeting anyone who sought to meet them. When a group of us reached Dr. Saibaba’s residence and requested the police to at least let us see the daughter, they categorically refused, claiming that it would compromise the investigation. It was only after much persuasion that they finally produced the minor girl, who reported that she had been terrified by the police into keeping quiet. The police even refused to allow our request to keep the daughter with us, since she was obviously scared of them, and immediately tried to return her forcibly into the house. They eventually left, after confiscating a large number of files, pen-drives, a laptop, and all the three mobile phones belonging to the family, none of which items were “stolen property”. Despite repeated requests by many of us to at least return the daughter’s phone, since it was dangerous to leave a physically disabled person with no means of communication (Dr. Saibaba suffers from 90% disability), the police refused to do so. Dr. Saibaba was not allowed to call his lawyer, or even any of his colleagues to ensure that the “investigation” would be a fair and transparent one. We strongly object to such an uncondonable invasion of privacy, and violation of basic rights. We are deeply concerned that a pattern of targeting university students and teachers is emerging, whereby the police forces of the country are clamping down on any attempt to question or protest against government policies, especially in the supposedly safe spaces of the university, in the name of protecting national security. The charge of harbouring “stolen property” is particularly outrageous, baseless and ridiculous. We condemn the complicity and silence of the university administration in this action, and demand that they immediately assure Dr. Saibaba and his family that there will not be a repeat of such an incident. Dr. P. K. Vijayan, Hindu College, DU Dr. Saroj Giri, Dept. of Political Science, DU Dr. Karen Gabriel, St. Stephen’s College, DU Dr. Hany Babu, Dept. of English, DU Dr. Naveen Gaur, Dyal Singh College, DU Mr. N. Sachin, Dyal Singh Colege, DU Dr. Anirban Kar, Dept. of Economics, DSE Dr. Vikas Gupta, Dept. of History, DU Ms. Nandita Narain, St. Stephen’s College, DU and President, DUTA Dr. Shashwati Majumdar, Dept. of Germanic and Romance
Posted on: Fri, 13 Sep 2013 07:30:50 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015