Tweet

Supriya Sharma

8 Oct, 14 tweets, 5 min read

A silent crackdown has been sweeping through India's capital.

Such is the fear that few are willing to speak about it.

#Thread

As you know, the Delhi Police has built a case blaming the communal violence that took place in February on a conspiracy by Citizenship Act protestors to overthrow the Modi government.

The case has been criticised as a witchhunt against the protestors.

21 people have been arrested in the case.

15 charged so far – including under the draconian anti-terror law UAPA.

A summary of the police’s charges here: scroll.in/article/974904…

But the arrests are just the tip of the iceberg.

Over 70 people have been interrogated by the Delhi Police.

A civil services aspirant. A food seller. A creative producer. A scientist.

All they have in common is they took part in the Citizenship Act protests.

@psychia90

Many allege they were abused, threatened, coerced by Delhi Police into giving false statements against fellow protestors.

Read @psychia90 and @VijaytaL's special report.

scroll.in/article/974896…

Reporting this story was not easy. Such is the fear that even seasoned social activists and academics who have been interrogated by the police declined requests for interviews.

Read each of the accounts to know how deep the chilling effect runs.

A dreamy-eyed civil services aspirant who took part in protests for the first time.

Abused and told: “The problem with you Muslims is that you get instigated very easily; you turn to your jihad at the slightest of provocations."

scroll.in/article/974898…

A social activist who works on education, employment, civic issues.

"Police said they had the right to torture me in the interrogation"

scroll.in/article/975163…

A young student who was asked why was she protesting when she is Hindu.

"Am I still in a democracy? The police made me question my harmless intentions"

scroll.in/article/974902…

A food seller who says he was forced to implicate someone he knew is innocent.

‘Police said your children will really suffer if you don’t speak up’

scroll.in/article/974901…

A communications professional who says the police pressurised him into giving a statement on a WhatsApp group he was part of.

‘Spill the truth or we will charge you under UAPA too.’

scroll.in/article/975103…

Hindu, upper caste, affluent creative producer. Mostly active on social media.

Now jaded after police questioning.

‘For me, a revolution is less romantic now. The consequences are more real’

scroll.in/article/974899…

One of the few people willing to be named in the story – Dinesh Abrol of the Delhi Science Forum.

"Police let riots happen to delegitimise the CAA protest. Now they are criminalising it."

scroll.in/article/974903…

@psychia90

Do read all of @psychia90 and @VijaytaL’s painstaking reporting.

A Silent Crackdown. All stories here: scroll.in/topic/56298/a-…

scroll.in/article/974896…

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More from @sharmasupriya

Supriya Sharma

@sharmasupriya

30 Aug

@psychia90

It is one year since the NRC was published in Assam.

Nearly two million people were left quasi-stateless.

What happened to them?

@psychia90 has a series of reports.

#Thread

One year later, those left out of the Assam NRC are yet to receive their rejection orders, needed to appeal against their exclusion in foreigners tribunals.

scroll.in/article/970901…

Life as an 'NRC reject' comes with social humiliations, legal deprivations.

Can't buy land or take up government jobs.

Weddings have been cancelled, membership to groups nearly revoked.

scroll.in/article/971038…

Read 7 tweets

Supriya Sharma

@sharmasupriya

10 Aug

India is holding its first commercial coal mine auctions bang in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.

Coal mining states stand to lose. Here's how.

#Thread

Loss of forest cover, communities face displacement, yet the coal mining states haven't been consulted – as Jharkhand has stated in a suit filed in the Supreme Court.

The coal mining states stand to lose even in terms of revenues.

Economic conditions are likely to depress the bid offers in the coal auctions – which makes it even more important for the Modi government to ensure the offers do not fall below a certain threshold by fixing an appropriate floor benchmark.

Here's where things get interesting.

Read 5 tweets

Supriya Sharma

@sharmasupriya

19 Jul

Delhi Police wants you to believe that the February violence was the outcome of a sinister conspiracy by Citizenship Act protestors.

But where is the evidence?

#Thread

This week, Delhi Police filed an affidavit in court alleging CAA protestors were willing to “execute a secessionist movement in the country by propagating an armed rebellion against the lawfully constituted government of the day”.

This, after it said in many chargesheets that the worst riots in 4 decades in the national capital were "a consequence of a deep-rooted conspiracy which was hatched under the garb of democratically opposing the Citizenship Act.”

Read 7 tweets

Supriya Sharma

@sharmasupriya

9 Jul

You've been reading about the purported WhatsApp conversations of Delhi rioters.

We took a deep dive.

#Thread

@VijaytaL

If accurate, the transcripts submitted by the police in court provide a vivid, chilling account of the way communal violence unfolded in Delhi in February.

@VijaytaL and @ShoaibDaniyal report

scroll.in/article/966775…

Purported conversations between the rioters shows that they consider the Delhi Police as an ally, rather than a force they should be fearful of.

“We don’t need the police. There are enough Hindu brothers to f**k their mothers.”

scroll.in/article/966775…

Read 5 tweets

Supriya Sharma

@sharmasupriya

31 May

Very strong statement by three medical professionals associations on the Indian government's mishandling of the coronavirus epidemic.

#Thread

The signatories are members of the Indian Public Health Association, the Indian Association of Preventive and Social Medicine and the Indian Association of Epidemiologists.

They include former advisors to the health ministry, current and former professors at AIIMS, BHU, PGIMER.

@abantika77

Significantly, as @abantika77 pointed out, among the signatories is Dr DCS Reddy, the head of the research group on epidemiology and surveillance constituted by the government’s National Task Force for Covid-19.

Another member, Dr Shashi Kant, has also signed the statement.

Read 9 tweets

Supriya Sharma

@sharmasupriya

13 May

Modi government claims India has enough PPE – personal protective equipment.

But health workers are still reporting shortages.

Companies say supply chains are slow.

We investigated why.

#Thread

@AarefaJohari

To recap:

In March, PPE manufacturers were still battling lack of transparency by the government and the sole agency appointed for centralised procurement.

@AarefaJohari reported on the strange case of missing tenders.

scroll.in/article/956866…

Not just government procurement, PPE companies could not even start production for private hospitals.

Why?

Because the government had not publicly released PPE specifications.

They were released – guess what – on the day the lockdown began. March 24.

scroll.in/article/957493…

Read 10 tweets

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