Con­tin­u­ing with its no­to­ri­ous tac­tics of in­tim­i­dat­ing any­one who does not sing paeans to the rul­ing party and the Modi-Shah user man­ual of life, In­di­a’s En­force­ment Di­rec­torate (ED) to­day raided well known so­cial ac­tivist and com­mu­nal har­mony ad­vo­cate Harsh Man­der’s of­fices and res­i­dence. The ED teams also raided the of­fices of the Cen­tre of Eq­uity Stud­ies (CES) Delhi, be­sides his Vas­ant Kunj home. Man­der is cur­rently in Berlin, Ger­many and is to join a fel­low­ship. WSN re­ports.

THE IN­COME TAX (IT) DE­PART­MENT OF IN­DIA, in a co­or­di­nated swoop, raided the res­i­dence, of­fices of hu­man rights ac­tivist Harsh Man­der across Delhi and also one of the chil­dren’s shel­ter homes run by an al­lied in­sti­tu­tion – Um­meed Aman Ghar – in Mehrauli. The raids were on at the time of fil­ing of this re­port.

Man­der is in Berlin at the in­vi­ta­tion of the Robert Bosch Acad­emy to join them for the pres­ti­gious Richard Von Weiz­sacker Fel­low­ship. The Robert Bosch Acad­emy, founded in 2014 as an in­sti­tu­tion of the Robert Bosch Stiftung, of­fers in­ter­na­tional de­ci­sion-mak­ers, opin­ion lead­ers, and ex­perts the op­por­tu­nity for so­lu­tion-ori­ented co­op­er­a­tion on is­sues of global rel­e­vance.

Some of In­di­a’s lead­ing pub­lic in­tel­lec­tu­als, ad­vo­cates, opin­ion lead­ers, com­mu­nity builders, aca­d­e­mi­cians and civil lib­er­ties ac­tivists have con­demned the raids, terming these as tac­tics aimed at ha­rass­ing and in­tim­i­dat­ing lead­ing hu­man rights and peace ac­tivist “who has done noth­ing but work for peace and har­mony, con­sis­tently up­hold­ing the high­est moral stan­dards of hon­esty and pro­bity.”

Harsh Man­der and the CES have re­mained the tar­get of ire of the in­cum­bent regime at the Cen­tre and have faced what they called “ha­rass­ment by mul­ti­ple state agen­cies.”

“Harsh Man­der has done noth­ing but work for peace and har­mony, con­sis­tently up­hold­ing the high­est moral stan­dards of hon­esty and pro­bity.”

In­di­a's lead­ing pub­lic in­tel­lec­tu­als and ac­tivists in a joint state­ment con­demn­ing the raids by the gov­ern­ment of In­dia

“The false and ma­li­cious al­le­ga­tions by the Na­tional Com­mis­sion for the Pro­tec­tion of Child Rights (NCPCR) were de­fin­i­tively coun­tered by the Delhi Com­mis­sion for the Pro­tec­tion of Child Rights (DCPCR), a statu­tory body, which has filed a strong af­fi­davit in the Delhi High Court, putting an end to the false al­le­ga­tions against CES,” ac­tivists Aruna Roy (MKSS), Dr Syeda Hameed (for­mer mem­ber, Plan­ning Com­mis­sion), Prof Jean Dreze and Prof. Apoor­vanand, among oth­ers, said in a signed state­ment.

They claimed that the CES has also been sub­jected to ha­rass­ment by the Eco­nomic Of­fences Wing (EOW), and the IT de­part­ment. “All these vin­dic­tive ef­forts com­bined, have shown nei­ther di­ver­sion of money nor any vi­o­la­tion of the law. The cur­rent raids by the ED and IT de­part­ment are to be viewed in this con­text, as part of a con­tin­u­ing chain of abuse of state in­sti­tu­tions to threaten, in­tim­i­date and try to si­lence every critic of the pre­sent gov­ern­ment,” they added.

Oth­ers who signed the state­ment, in­cluded In­dira Jais­ing, Se­nior Ad­vo­cate, Dr V Suresh, PUCL, Gen­eral Sec­re­tary, Ravi Ki­ran Jain, Pres­i­dent PUCL, Henri Tiphagne, Peo­ple’s Watch, Kavita Kr­ish­nan, AIPWA Gen­eral Sec­re­tary, Mi­hir De­sai, Se­nior Ad­vo­cate and PUCL, Teesta Se­tal­vad, CJP, Nav Sha­ran Singh, In­de­pen­dent Re­searcher, Anu­radha Tal­war, PBKMS, Shab­nam Hashmi, An­had, An­nie Raja, Gen­eral Sec­re­tary, NFIW, Farah Naqvi, Writer, Avinash, Hu­man Rights Worker, Nikhil Dey, MKSS, Shanker Singh, MKSS, Purwa Bharad­waj, Writer and trainer, Gauhar Raza, Film Maker, Kavita Sri­vas­tava, PUCL, Na­tional Sec­re­tary, Lara Je­sani, PUCL, Ma­ha­rash­tra, Mo­hammed Nadeem, UAH, Brinelle D’­Souza, Teacher, Fa­ther Cedric Prakash, Hu­man Rights Worker, Ash­lin Mathew, Jour­nal­ist, Saro­jini, SAMA and Anand Grover, Se­nior Ad­vo­cate.