 June 6th marks the second anniversary of the arrest of activists in India as part of what is known as the Bhima Koregaon or Elgar Parishad case. This case has become a prime example of the targeting of those who are critical of India's current far right-wing government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party. In this video, we look at the case and at those who are being targeted. So what is the Bhima Koregaon or Elgar Parishad case? Bhima Koregaon is a village in the state of Maharashtra. It was a site of a 19th century battle in which a British army including members of the oppressed lower castes defeated an army of upper caste rulers. Every year a celebration is held to mark this victory. On December 31st 2017, the Elgar Parishad which is a mass mobilization event was conducted by activist groups in the city of Pune ahead of the anniversary. In the following days, clashes took place in the area in which at least two people were killed. How did the investigation proceed? The initial investigations into these clashes focused on the role of Hindu right-wing groups which attacked the gathering of the oppressed caste or Dalits. The police filed investigation reports against Sambhaji Bide and Milind Ekbote, two leaders of Hindu supremacist outfits for their role in the clashes. Bide has never been arrested while Ekbote was briefly arrested but released on bail. These outfits share the ideology of the ruling Bharati Janta Party which was at that time in power in the center and in the state of Maharashtra. However, soon the focus of the investigation shifted. The police came out of the theory that people linked with banned Maoist militants were responsible for the violence. Ultimately, this morphed into an allegation that it was all leading up to a plot to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The police never provided any concrete evidence of this claim except a dubious letter seized later during the investigation. On June 6, 2018, five activists were arrested for the alleged role in this conspiracy. They were Sudeed Havle, Shoma Sen, Mahesh Raut, Surendra Gardening and Rona Wilson. They were activists with a history of struggling for some of the most oppressed communities in India. Many of them had also worked in campaigns for the release of political prisoners. The five activists were arrested under the Draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. They continued to be in prison to this day. The next round of arrest took place in August 2018. Those targeted were Sudha Bharadwaj, a lawyer and the National Secretary of People's Union for Civil Liberties, PUCL, senior ideologue and poet Varavar Rao, lawyer and cartoonist Arun Farera, academic Verna and Gonzales and writer and human rights activist Gautam Navlaka. Both Farera and Gonzales had earlier been imprisoned on similar charges and had been acquitted in those cases. Most of these activists approached the courts to stay these arrests but they were denied. Only Gautam Navlaka's arrest was stayed and he was detained at home for a while even as his case was heard in various courts. In October 2018, he was freed from house detention. However, earlier this year, Gautam Navlaka and another target of the case, scholar Anand Telthumde ran out of legal options after their pleas for anticipatory bails were denied. Thus in April, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, Navlaka and Telthumde, both of whom are over 60, had to surrender themselves to the National Investigation Agency which is conducting the probe. Towards the end of May, Navlaka who suffers from various ailments was secretly transported from Delhi to the city of Mumbai even while another bail hearing was on. What evidence is available so far? The main argument of the police is based on letters supposedly recovered from the laptops of some of the activists who were arrested. These letters allegedly detail the conspiracy. However, at least one media organization has reported that the evidence may have been tampered with. There were also allegedly procedural lapses in the way the evidence was collected. In many of the bail hearings for the activists, the prosecution has submitted evidence in sealed envelopes which denies the defense the chance to scrutinize it during their arguments. Thus to this day, it is not really clear what the charges against these activists are. As of today, these 11 activists are in jail in connection with the case. Many of them are even unwell. This is at a time when many states have released prisoners under various conditions of parole due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, this has not been extended to these activists. The one thing that unites all of them is that they have fought for the rights of the marginalized and have been critical of the policies of the right-wing Bharati Janata party which is in power at the center. To this day, their struggle for justice continues. Thank you very much.