By Lysa John Berna, Secretary-General of CIVICUS and Mandeep Singh Tiwana Chief Programmes Officer at CIVICUS
A respected woman social activist and political leader beaten and kicked in the stomach at a police station for recording a public protest. A human rights lawyer arbitrarily detained and given electric shocks by police officers. A journalist covering public demonstrations for a prominent national newspaper taken to a police station, subjected to obscene slurs by the police while witnessing a social activist being badly beaten-up.
Police stand by as an organised mob of masked goons attack students of a premier Left-leaning university in the dead of the night. Blanket institution of highly questionable criminal cases, indiscriminate arrests, caning and use of live ammunition with lethal effect on protestors. This is not the image of their country that Indians at home and abroad want to project to the world.
Read on: The Wire
