A group of citizens submitted a memorandum to the Commissioner of Police, Bengaluru, "raising concerns of breach of Constitutional provisions and Criminal Law procedures during the arrest of Disha Ravi." The memorandum copy alleges that the arrest was arbitrary and in violation of procedures, constitutional and criminal law. Advocate and activist Vinay Sreenivasa, Environmentalist Leo Saldanha, lawyer Poorna R, activist Madhu Bhushan and journalist Aruna Chandrashekhar are among the 70 signatories of the memorandum.
Disha Ravi was arrested from her house in Bengaluru on Saturday afternoon and taken to Delhi by the 6 pm flight. Her arrest was the first arrest made under the FIR (first information report) filed by the Delhi police on February 4. In the FIR, the Delhi police charged the creators of the toolkit that Greta Thunberg had shared on Twitter. The Cyber Prevention Awareness Detection of the Delhi police accused Disha Ravi of being the “editor of the toolkit Google doc and key conspirator in document's formulation and dissemination. She started WhatsApp group and collaborated to make the toolkit doc. She worked closely with them to draft the doc,” the Delhi police tweeted. Disha has been booked under sections124A (sedition), 153 (wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot), 153A (promoting enmity between different groups) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.
However, it is pertinent to note that toolkits generally contain some basic information on any issue, tweet suggestions, information on what hashtags to use and whom to tag on social media. It is a regular inventory while organising protests online. However, in this case, the Delhi police contended that this particular toolkit was created to malign India.
The memo by the citizens' group further alleged, “All constitutional protections enjoyed by the arrestee were brazenly denied to her and she was taken to Delhi in a wholly unlawful manner. It is pertinent to note that Ms Ravi's family, her legal counsel and the public at large have been kept in the dark about the details and documents relating to the arrest.”
Reiterating the allegation that provisions of Article 22 were violated during Disha’s arrest, the memorandum stated that Disha was not given an opportunity to consult and be defended by a legal representative of her choice. In addition, it has accused the Bengaluru police of not taking measures to ensure that she was allowed to even contact her legal counsel before she was taken to Delhi. They added that Disha was not produced before the nearest magistrate, which was required to be done in Bengaluru before she was taken outside the state.
The memorandum was received by the Deputy Commissioner of Police MN Anucheth on behalf of the Commissioner. The memorandum demands that the Bengaluru police provide the signatories with a series of documents relevant to the arrest, including copies of the entries made in the jurisdictional police station in Bengaluru, copy of the prior permission sanction sought by the police officer in charge of the arrest from the higher superior officers in writing to carry out the investigation, a copy of the complaint or the FIR (both in English and Kannada), a copy of the arrest and search warrant containing the facts and recorded reasons in writing disclosing the satisfaction that the arrest was necessary for the purpose of investigation and copy of the transit remand.
The signatories also have asked for a thorough and full-fledged inquiry into the “acts and omissions" by the police authorities concerned.
So far, there has been no official response from the Bengaluru police on the allegations being levelled against them.
Meanwhile, a complaint was filed by the same set of complainants against Haryana Minister Anil Vij for his tweet that read, "Be it Disha Ravi or anybody else, anyone with anti-national thought in their mind should be completely eradicated."
Speaking to a news channel, Karnataka Home Minister Basavaraj Bombai dismissed any lapse in the procedure and defended the Delhi police’s right to make the arrest in Bengaluru.