Four activists in Mahan were arrested and put in jail
9052014
Brikesh Singh, Greenpeace India
To Me
May 8 at 7:12 PM
Hi Naresh,
At 12.05 hrs this morning, four activists in Mahan were arrested and put in jail. Akshay Gupta, Vinit Gupta, Bechan Lal Shah and Vijay Shankar Singh, were neither told what their crime is not where they were being taken. They now await trial.
All because they chose to stand up against the company that wants to chop down over 5,00,000 trees and displace thousands of villagers in Mahan. Essar, the lead partner in this company, has made several attempts to gag support for Mahan’s forests in the past. But it hasn’t worked.
Treating those four activists as criminals is like treating all of us who stand for forests as criminals. We can’t let this happen. Let’s tell the company that support for forests will not be stifled.
Ask Essar to commit to oppose the arrest of activists for protesting peacefully.
Showing the company that support for Mahan’s forests spreads beyond the villages, will help make them cautious of their reputation. They need to know that there are lakhs of us who know of their intention and they can’t continue with their slimy ways.
After hours of their arrest, we finally found out that they’ve been booked under four charges including robbery. Robbery? Yeah, we know how ridiculous these charges are. But that’s not all. One of our activists reports that he was beaten up by the police when he refused to sign a confession.
Earlier this week, people in Mahan prevented company officials from demarcating trees in the forest. And now four of them are under arrest. The movement to protect Mahan’s forests continues. Let’s show this to the company who wants to destroy it.
Thanks,
Brikesh Singh
Greenpeace India
Greenpeace India
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