Articles by Susan Abraham

The Gadchiroli Sessions Court judgment sentencing G N Saibaba, Prashant Rahi, Hem Mishra, Mahesh Tirki, Pandu Narote to life imprisonment and Vijay Tirki to 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment is flawed and shows clearly to what extent the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act can be misused. Apart from citing irrelevant documents, it has ignored valid evidence and arguments presented by the defence, and accepted dubious versions of the same presented by the prosecution.

The Indian Express-Maharashtra General Kamgar Union case is an eye-opener, which challenges the stand that the judiciary is better placed to address labour issues than unions. The writer, who stood by the cause for 30 years, chronicles the decline of the labour movement in Mumbai. 

The charges against thousands of people locked up by the State all over the country are that they believe in or espouse the ideology of Marxism-Leninism, that they reject the parliamentary system for a communist one, and that they owe allegiance to the CPI (Maoist).