Ahmedabad alumnus, IIT Professor, Executive Director of

BPCL, Ex-MD & CEO of Petronet India, Senior Professor and Chair, Big Data Analytics in

GIM, author of 26 books, columnist in EPW, writer of innumerable articles, a noted scholar of

caste-class and public policy issues, leading public intellectual and democratic and educational

rights activist faces imminent threat of arrest as an ‘Urban Maoist’ in the vilest post-

independence plot by the state.

The criminal farce of exploiting an important day of commemoration for the Dalits, the

anniversary of the battle that took place at Bhima-Koregaon in 1818 in which the Mahar soldiers

played a leading role in defeating the Peshwa rulers, to incarcerate select human rights

defenders, intellectuals and activists in peoples’ movements and curb dissent in the country

is an unprecedented and blatant abuse of power.

The police have claimed that there was a plot to carry out a “Rajiv Gandhi style” assassination of

Prime Minister Narendra Modi! Fabrications such as this have allowed the police to apply

the dreaded UAPA which leaves no defence for the arrested who can be incarcerated for

years without evidence. It is a perfect vehicle for the police, acting at the behest of their

political bosses, to claim knowledge of fabricated “crimes”.

Under the circumstances, on 14th January 2019 the Supreme Court rejected Prof. Teltumbde’s appeal for quashing the “false” FIR against him filed by the Pune Police,

stating that the matter was under investigation and that he could seek pre-arrest bail from

the competent court within four weeks.

Coming from the poorest of poor family, Prof. Teltumbde has passed through the best institutes

in the country with scholastic achievements. It naturally propelled him to take cudgel for the

disadvantaged people in the manner possible for his professional jobs. He is currently General

Secretary of the Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights (CPDR) and Presidium Member

of All India Forum for Right to education (AIFRTE), a movement for people’s educationalr ights.

There is not an iota of the “unlawful” either in his voluminous writings or his selfless

activism. His entire academic career and corporate career of nearly four decades has been an

example of integrity of the highest degree.

In the country, when the due process of law itself is a punishment that the police use to the hilt,

it is nothing short of capital punishment to a professional-intellectual-activist like Prof

Teltumbde. People in the past have been kept in jail for averagely five years before they were

acquitted of every charge. There is absolutely no accountability of anyone in our justice delivery

system for this unlawful incarceration and destroying victims and their families. Prof Teltumbde

expressed his anguish over this prospect that he would be kept away from his intellectual

activities, from his students who are admitted in the Big Data Analytics course, the first of its

kind he launched this year, and worried about the investment that GIM made. He is worried

about his half-written manuscripts of books committed to various publishers, research papers at

various stages of completion, and his family—wife, who, as the granddaughter of Babasaheb

Ambedkar hardly bargained for this fate and daughters who are already disturbed not knowing

whatever that has been happening to him since August last year.

AIFRTE strongly condemns the threatened arrest of Prof Teltumbde and demands that

the Maharashtra government should immediately drop all charges (including those under

UAPA) against Prof Anand Teltumbde.

AIFRTE also appeals to all its member organizations and to the university community across the

country to immediately begin this process by approaching the national and regional media,

issuing statements through social media and organizing protest meetings.