From Bhima Koregaon to NewsClick

The Bombay High Court began hearing last week the petitions of professoractivist Shoma Sen and researcheractivist Rona Wilson two among the 16 booked under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act in the Bhima Koregaon case Their plea is that the chargesheets against them should be quashed as the prosecution evidence against them was fabricated and planted on electronic devices the police seizedAlso last week the Supreme Court began hearing the petitions challenging the arrest of NewsClickrsquos foundereditor Prabir Purkayastha and its Human Resources head Amit Chakraborty They were arrested under an FIR that invoked the UAPA From Bhima Koregaon to NewsClick India continues its journey through a hell called UAPA on a path that deviates littleThe seizure of electronic devices in the Bhima Koregaon case took place after one Tushar Damgude filed a complaint on January 8 2018 at the Vishrambaug police station Pune Damgude said the cultural performances at the Elgar Parishad held on December 31 2017 were provocative and designed to implement the Maoist policy of inciting the ldquobackward classrdquo to resort to violence at the celebration to mark the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Bhima Koregaon Incredible for an ordinary citizen to know thatIn March 2018 police officer Shivaji Pawar filed an application in a Pune Sessions Court requesting it to issue warrants for searching the premises of the six people against whom Damgude had complained plus activist Rona Wilson and lawyer Surendra Gadling In the application Pawar said ldquosecret information was received from a credible sourcerdquo that Sudhir Dhawale an organiser of the Elgar Parishad Wilson and Gadling worked for the banned Communist Party of India MaoistThe FIR against NewsClick like Pawarrsquos application says ldquosecret inputsrdquo were received that foreign entities illegally pumped funds into India to disrupt its sovereignty and integrity NewsClick the FIR alleges received crores of rupeesBack to Bhima Koregaon after the Sessions Court rejected Pawarrsquos application the Pune Police invoked a section of the Criminal Procedure Code and raided on April 17 2018 the premises of the eight people against whom search warrants were applied for Their electronic devices were seized None of them was given a hash value a unique number guaranteeing the authenticity of a dataset stored on a device Any tampering with the data changes the hash valueSen was raided and arrested on June 6 she too wasnrsquot given hash values for the electronic devices the police took away from her Subsequently Arsenal Consultancy a digital forensic company issued reports showing that documents were planted on the devices of Wilson Gadling and Father Stan Swamy It was on the basis of the documents allegedly extracted from their devices that the police had arrested Sen and 15 othersNow turn to NewsClick which was being investigated since 2021 for allegedly receiving lsquoChinese moneyrsquo to the tune of R38 crore A large part of this money to NewsClick actually came as direct foreign investment from Worldwide Media Holdings LLC which is owned by Peoplersquos Support Foundation Limited established with funds American businessperson Neville Roy Singham donated from the proceeds he received by selling his company ThoughtWorksOn August 5 The New York Times published report titled lsquoA Global Web of Chinese Propaganda Leads to a US Tech Mogulrsquo which said Singham was bankrolling media outlets in order to promote Chinese propaganda Singham claimed the NYT did not carry his rebuttals in full and Jason Pfetcher the Foundationrsquos board member said his statement was not even featuredAll hell broke loose in India for the NYT had accused NewsClick of ldquosprinkling its coverage with Chinese government talking pointsrdquo But the evidence it provided was just one video which was on Chinarsquos history being an inspiration for the working classes This thin evidence places the NYT story on as slippery a ground as anyone who would claim that Mara Hvistendahl the lead author of the story on Singham appears to have played the game of USArsquos Federal Bureau of Investigation on the grounds that she once accessed the agencyrsquos documents to write a pageturner lsquoThe Scientist and the Spy A True Story of China the FBI and Industrial Espionagersquo A fortnight after the NYT published its story the Delhi Police registered the FIR against NewsClickIn the Bhima Koregaon case the Maoists were accused of funding the accused to incite Dalits to destabilise Indian democracymdashnot too different from the FIR against the NewsClick editor and others who are alleged to have used illegal foreign funds to abet and prolong the farmer protest with the aim of destroying public property and disrupting supplies essential for community lifeOver 80 staffers of NewsClick were raided on October 3 and their electronic devices were seized They were not given hash values Some did indeed have the police teams write that they seized laptops and hard discs without electronically securing them But tech experts say it is easy to backdate a document for inserting it on an unsecured electronic device Would NewsClick staffers discover documents they had never possessed ascribed to them as Sen and Wilson claim happened with them The gods of the hell named UAPA do know a few tricksThe writer is a senior journalistSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper