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DU student activist Rudra has been reported missing; fears of illegal detention rise amid reports of custodial torture and police crackdowns on activists.

Concerns are mounting over the disappearance of Rudra, a 20-year-old student of Philosophy (Honours) from Zakir Hussain College, Delhi University, who has been untraceable since the morning of July 18, shortly after arriving in the capital. His disappearance follows a disturbing pattern of alleged illegal detentions and custodial torture by the Special Branch of the Delhi Police, involving seven other student activists earlier this month.

According to friends and fellow activists, Rudra boarded the Howrah-New Delhi Duronto Express from Kolkata on July 18. He contacted a friend around 7:40 AM, confirming that he had arrived at the New Delhi Railway Station. That call was his last known communication. Since then, there has been no word from him, and his whereabouts remain unknown.

In an interview with Maktoob Media, Rudra’s friends stated,

Rudra is a very bright student and a diligent activist who has the best interests of people at heart….. What has been happening is an unprecedented attack on resisting voices, and a direct fascistic attack on democracy.

With no information from the police or authorities, Rudra’s family and comrades fear that he has been detained incommunicado—similar to the six previously missing student activists, who were eventually found to be in police custody days later. These detentions, unacknowledged at the time, have since been linked to allegations of severe custodial torture.

The Campaign Against State Repression (CASR) issued a statement,

While in custody, the activists were subjected to torture that directly violates the right to life and dignity under Article 21 of the Constitution. They were stripped naked, beaten, electrocuted, and subjected to degrading treatment including having their heads submerged in toilet bowls.

The six previously detained individuals include Gurkirat, Gaurav, and Gaurang from bsCEM; Baadal and Ehtemam from Forum Against Corporatization and Militarization; and Samrat, a psychologist from Haryana.

Rudra’s Class Representative issued a statement to DU Beat:

Although he was not very regular to the class, he read a lot. He posted about the articles he read on social media. It seemed like he was affiliated to the communist student activist groups. As CR, I’ve talked to him regarding assignments and tests. He was particularly quiet.

Human rights organisations and student groups have condemned what they describe as an orchestrated crackdown on student activists, involving arbitrary detentions, lack of due process, and third-degree custodial torture. According to multiple reports, the seven released activists were held in undisclosed locations and subjected to degrading and violent treatment.

Currently, any details regarding Rudra’s whereabouts are still awaited.

Image Source: Maktoob Media

Madhav Choudhary

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What can stop a mind which is devoid of fear? A mind which speaks the truth and a pen which nibs down the truth?

Three bullets which took the life of Gauri Lankesh try to tell us that they can do the same, they can even silence free voices. But the outrage afterwards – protests across the country and newspaper editorials – speaks of another story, which is the one I choose to believe.

Gauri Lankesh was a fearless journalist who opposed the communal and totalitarian politics of the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) and its twisted interpretations of Hinduism. She stood against the caste system, inequality, and gender discrimination. She was one of the most prominent free voices which criticised the government openly and fiercely, without any fear. She inherited a legacy of thought from her father which advocated giving a voice to the downtrodden and the oppressed, the majority of whose plight doesn’t reach the power corridors of the establishment.

In her life, she was a living example of a revolutionary mind. In a patriarchal society where the role of women is limited to working within the walls of the house, where they are not allowed to dream big, where they are still treated like the property of men and often face sexual violence both inside as well as outside the house, she was an independent woman who fiercely lived, breathed, and wrote critically of the establishment, unfazed. At a time when speaking against the government is traded for being anti-national and the space for dissent is ever-shrinking, she refused to bow down and until her last day, advocated for granting refugee status to the Rohingya Muslims. Her killing resembles the same pattern as that of M.M. Kalburgi, Narendra Dabholkar, and Govind Pansare. Even after huge public outrage, the snail-paced investigation in all these cases sends a clear message from the establishment.

The onus is on you. Will you listen?

If your answer is that of the ruling side, then you stand on the same side as the internet trolls, whose values are driven and encouraged by people whose rationale equates to superior quality garbage. In this case, I can see you taking this country towards an age of “unreason”, where holding power becomes the prerequisite and the sole validating agency of truth.

If your answer is on the other side, then we all stand together in this fight for freedom of expression and protection of the rights guaranteed to us by the Constitution. And we all stand together to inherit the legacy of the slain journalist, who took bullets for speaking what she wanted to.

Feature Image Credits: Scroll

Srivedant Kar
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