Paranoid govt should stop persecution of activists: CPI(M) on Disha Ravi's arrest in toolkit case

The CPI(M) condemned on Monday the arrest of climate activist Disha Ravi over a toolkit shared on social media in support of the ongoing farmer protests and said the "paranoid" government should stop the "persecution" of activists. Ravi (21) was arrested from Bengaluru on Saturday and sent to five days' police remand by a Delhi court on Sunday.

"Stop This Persecution. The arrest of Disha Ravi, a climate activist from Bengaluru, by the Delhi police is an atrocious action which deserves to be condemned in the strongest terms.

"The 22 year-old activist has been charged with sedition and criminal conspiracy on the absurd grounds that she had forwarded a 'tool-kit' in support of the farmers' struggle. The paranoid Modi government has to forthwith end this persecution of young activists. The charges against Disha Ravi should be withdrawn and she has to be released from custody," the Communist Party of India (Marxist) said in a statement.


The Delhi Police has alleged that Ravi and others "collaborated with the pro-Khalistani Poetic Justice Foundation to spread disaffection against the Indian State".

"She was the one who shared the toolkit doc with Greta Thunberg," the police claimed in a tweet. Thunberg, a teenage climate activist, had shared the "toolkit" to lend her support to the farmers' agitation in India against three new agriculture laws.

In the document, various urgent actions, including creating a Twitter storm and protesting outside Indian embassies, were listed that were needed to be taken to support the farmers' protest. The toolkit has been cited by some as a "proof" of Thunberg's conspiracy to fuel protests in India.