Praful Bidwai's Funeral, Police Harassment, Ransom-seeking Threat, 30 Court Summons
I arrived in Delhi this morning and attended Praful Bidwai's sober and moving funeral ceremony along with many Delhi-based journalists, activists and friends. There were several VIPs too. Prakash Karat, Brindha Karat, M. A. Baby, D. Raja, Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia, Arundhati Roy, Shabnam Hashmi, Kavita Krishnan, Harsh Kapoor, Anil Choudhary, Achin Vanaik etc. It was really disturbing to see Praful lying there inactive. A very big loss for India, I must say!
As I came out of the funeral, my wife called to say that the CB-CID police were after us again. They wanted to have some documents and asked us about what we had reported in our school attack complaint three years ago. I talked to the officer concerned and asked him what action they took against the criminals and vandals we had included in our complaint. The police did not take any action at all; in fact, they have given police escort to a few of those criminals because of their political connections. I said to the officer, "I have not stolen publlic money in crores; nor have I vanadalized public or private properties. I have filed a quash petition against the CB-CID case at the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court. If you keep harassing me, I will sit in indefinite hunger strike in front of your office with my family." And I will do it!
As I was dealing with this police harassment, my school staff called me to say that they had received an annonymous letter seeking some Rs.10 lakh as ransom by June 23rd for not exposing the sexual harassment that was allegedly taking place in our school.
In the meantime, my lawyer calls to say that the local court and police have prepared 30 summons on the struggle-related cases to drag me to the various courts and to hound me and my family.
Well, it seems the authorities are getting ready for another round of persecution and torment. As Ernest Hemingway says in his famous "Old Man and the Sea" novel, "A man may be destroyed but not defeated!" Those who have tried to destroy me and my people have found themselves destroyed! After all, we fight for public good and only good things happen to us!
S. P. Udayakumar
New Delhi
June 27, 2015
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