Social activist Anand Teltumbde who has been booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act for allegedly instigating violence during the Bhima-Koregaon event, surrendered before the National Investigation Agency (NIA) today, April 14.

Earlier, Supreme Court had given him and activist Gautam Navlakha one week to surrender. The Apex court’s deadline ends on a day when the country is observing the 129th birth anniversary of Dr BR Ambedkar.

The activists were booked on delivering provocative speeches at the Elgar Parishad meet held in Pune on December 31, 2017, which allegedly triggered violence the very next day.

Reportedly, a black flag was hoisted outside Teltumbde’s house in Mumbai as a symbol of disapproval against the arrest of the activists.

It is significant to note that while the country is battling to combat the coronavirus pandemic, prisoners are being released in an attempt to decongest the jail. On one hand, the top court is keeping the life and safety of prisoners at the top of its priority list amid the outbreak, while on the other it is sending the two activists behind the bars.

Before his arrest, Teltumbde penned a letter on the series of events eventually leading to his arrest.

In his letter, he says that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) played a key role in the entire episode of false accusations. ‘My Marathi friends told me that one of their functionaries, Ramesh Patange, had written an article in their mouthpiece Panchjanya targeting me in April 2015. I was identified as Mayavi Ambedkarwadi along with Arundhati Roy and Gail Omvedt. Mayavi in the Hindu mythology refers to a demon meant to be destroyed,’ he writes.

He detailed the events that occurred and what conspired the arrest orders. ‘I am implicated on the basis of the five letters among the 13 that the police purportedly recovered from the computers of two arrestees in the case. Nothing has been recovered from me. The letter makes reference to ‘Anand’, a common name in India, but the police unquestioningly identified it with me,’ he writes.

Open letter to the People of India

I am aware this may be completely drowned in the motivated cacophony of the BJP-RSS combine and the subservient media but I still think it may be worth talking to you as I do not know whether I would get another opportunity.

Since August 2018, when the police raided my house in faculty housing complex of Goa Institute of Management, my world turned completely topsy-turvy. Never in my worst dream, could I imagine the things that began happening to me. Although, I was aware that police used to visit the organizers of my lectures, mostly universities, and scare them with enquiries about me, I thought they might be mistaking me for my brother who left family years back. While I was teaching at IIT Kharagpur an officer of BSNL phoned, introducing himself as my admirer and well-wisher, informed me that my phone was being tapped. I thanked him but did nothing, not even to change my sim. I was disturbed by these intrusions but comforted myself that it might rather convince Police that I was a normal person and there is no element of illegality in my conduct. The Police generally disliked civil rights activists because they question police. I imagined, it might be due to the fact that I belonged to that tribe. But again I comforted myself that they would find that I could not perform that role either because of my full time engagement with my job.

But when I got an early morning phone call from the Director of my institute, informing me that the Police have raided the campus and were looking for me, I was wordless for a few seconds. I had come to Mumbai on official work just a few hours before and my wife had come earlier. When I learnt of the arrests, of the persons whose houses were raided that day, I was shaken by the realisation that I escaped the fate just by whiskers. The Police did know my whereabouts and could arrest me even then but for the reasons known only to them, did not do so. They did open our house too, forcibly getting a duplicate key from the security guard, but just video-graphed it and locked it back. Our ordeal began right there. At the advice of our lawyers, my wife took the next available flight to Goa, and lodged a complaint with Bicholim Police Station that the Police had opened our house in our absence and that we would not be responsible if they had planted anything. She volunteered giving our telephone numbers should the Police want to inquire with us.

Strangely, police had started holding press conferences soon after they embarked on the Maoist story. It was clearly meant to whip up prejudice in public against me and other arrested with the help of obliging media. On 31 August 2018, in one such press conference, a police officer read out a letter purportedly recovered from the computer of previous arrestees, as an evidence against me. The letter was clumsily constructed with the information on the academic confere…