False cases, custodial violence: Activists fear Kerala jails are making their own Stan Swamys
“Deeply saddened by the passing of Father Stan Swamy,” Pinarayi Vijayan, the chief minister of Kerala, wrote in a tweet after the 84-year-old Jesuit priest and Adivasi-rights activist died in police custody in Maharashtra, in July this year. “Unjustifiable that a man who fought all through his life for our society’s most downtrodden had to die in custody. Such travesty of justice should have no place in our democracy.” While Vijayan expressed his shock about Swamy, he has ignored the struggles of those facing similar charges in Kerala’s jails.
In the past five years, despite seeing nearly no major terrorist or Maoist attacks, the Kerala government registered 145 cases under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and offences pertaining to sedition and “waging war against the state” in the Indian Penal Code. On 27 October 2021, while replying to a question in the legislative assembly about the number of people charged under the UAPA during his tenure and the details of the charges against them, Vijayan refused to answer. He said, “the details of accused in cases pertaining to national security and which are under consideration of special courts cannot be revealed.” He also refused to answer questions about the number of UAPA undertrials and the amount of time they had spent in prison.
Over six years, courts in Kerala have denied bail to NK Ibrahim, a 67-year-old activist with a serious heart condition, multiple times. In June this year, CK Rajeevan, another activist lodged in Kannur jail, went on a hunger strike to get tested for COVID-19, according to Thankamma, his wife. S Danish, a 32-year-old activist, has received bail in several cases against him, but the Kerala Police Anti Terrorist Squad has repeatedly accused him in fresh UAPA cases to keep him in prison, his lawyer Tushar Nirmal Sarathi, said. In prison, Danish got infected with COVID-19.
The three activists and their lawyers and families have been struggling to maintain their health in prison for the entirety of the pandemic. The lawyers and families of all three inmates told me that they had written multiple times to Vijayan requesting his intervention, but received no response. Many of the allegations of police and prison misconduct were levelled against the Viyyur High Security Prison in Thrissur district. Activist raising concerns about the mistreatment of activists in Kerala have also been targeted by what they claim are false cases.
On 13 July 2015, Ibrahim was arrested by the Kerala Police from Payyoli village in Kozhikode district, accused of being a member of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and conspiring to wage war against the state. He was booked for sedition under Section 124A of the IPC and under multiple sections of the UAPA. His family told me that he was working as a helper at a vegetable shop in Payyoli at the time, and had been involved in trade-union activism in the region.
“Ibrahim ikka was at the forefront in the struggle against the forcible eviction of Harrison Malayalam Plantation workers during 1990s,” Ravi, a close friend of Ibrahim from Wayanad district’s Nedumbala village, told me. “While the mainstream labour unions sided with the company, Ibrahim ikka and a handful of others stood strongly with the workers. At least 12 people got arrested in that mass movement.” But Ibrahim’s 28-year-old son, Noufal, an autorickshaw driver, told me that claims about any involvement with waging war against the state were absurd. He said the arrest came as a shock to the family. “I have no clue why he got arrested. The police told me that my father is a Maoist,” he said.
Fifteen days after his arrest, Ibrahim was booked in another case registered by the Kerala Police at Vellamunda police station in Wayanad district. The new FIR accused Ibrahim and two others—Rajeesh and Anoop—of providing hideouts, food and weapons to five Maoist cadre. The FIR went on to claim that on 24 April 2014, the five Maoists, armed with AK-47 rifles, trespassed into the house of AB Pramod, a senior civil police officer, and threatened to kill him if he did not resign from his job and stop helping police in anti-Maoist operations. The police had booked Ibrahim, and all the others allegedly involved, under various sections of the UAPA, IPC and the Arms Act, 1959. All of them have remained in jail for the past six years. In December 2015, the union ministry of home affairs ordered that the case be handed over to the National Investigation Agency, which re-registered both cases on 2 January 2016.
According to the chargesheet in the case, on 6 July 2017, Rajeesh, the sixth accused in the case, gave a statement before the Kakkanad judicial first class magistrate court under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The evidence against Ibrahim is mainly based on the Rajeesh’s statement, in which he claimed to have overheard Ibrahim saying, “Today, we have a mission assigned by our party against a person. Let’s see if he will learn the lesson.” The chargesheet claimed the party being referred to is the CPI (Maoist). Sarathi, who is also Ibrahim’s lawyer, is a member of the Kerala-based human rights organisation Janakeeya Manushyavakasha Prasthanam—People’s Human Rights Forum. He told me that evidence against Ibrahim was scanty so the NIA was relying on approvers to make their case. “There is no witness to substantiate the case of conspiracy, weapon, and food transportation,” Sarathi said. “Rajeesh confessed that they transported a bag to Wayanad. He assumed that there was a weapon inside it considering the weight and shape of the bag, but that too is flimsy evidence since Rajeesh never looked inside the bag.” Sarathi told me that in multiple recent cases, the NIA had used approvers to prosecute UAPA undertrials.
Ibrahim is a heart patient with diabetes and symptoms of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. On 16 July 2021, a medical board at the Government Medical College Hospital, Thrissur, examined him and noted that while his condition was stable, there is always an “increased risk of future cardiovascular care.”
When I visited his home in Wayanad’s Nedumbala area, on 26 July, his 26-year-old daughter-in-law, Mubashira, told me about his health issues. “Uppa”—father—“takes 22 tablets every day,” she said. “His diabetes is still not under control. He lost almost all teeth and the remaining few got extracted to fix dental implants. As his tooth got removed as a side effect of diabetes, he is surviving on chapattis dipped in mildly hot water, tea.” The medical board’s report also noted that Ibrahim had complained of difficulty in chewing after a recent tooth extraction. Mubashira told me, “He suffered two cardiac arrests inside the jail. He was unable to eat vegetables and meat. The Kerala red rice, served in the jail, is causing him digestive issues.”
In late 2019, Ibrahim was allowed to visit his home during a short parole. Pathukutty, his 77-year-old mother-in-law, told me that when he came home, it became clear just how poorly his health had fared in jail. “I am afraid that we will lose him forever if he was jailed for one more year,” she said. “His health was perfectly alright before he went to jail. He was a hard-working man. During the short-term parole visit, he seemed like a skeleton. He requires proper treatment. His children and in-laws will pool in money and we will take him to a private hospital if he gets released.”
Even the parole visits, Ibrahim’s family told me, were short and heavily monitored. “On first parole, he came home at around 10 am with tight police security and left around 5 pm on the same day,” Noufal, Ibrahim’s son, said. “The second parole was in January 2020 and it lasted hardly for three hours. He reached home around 11 am and the police asked him to return by 2 pm.” On both instances Ibrahim was granted parole to meet his four grandchildren—all of whom were born after his arrest. “He barely got any time with them,” Noufal told me. Mubashira, Ibrahim’s daughter-in-law, told me that in phone calls, her father still spoke about how he yearned to see his grandchildren again.
CP Rasheed, the state secretary of JMP, told me that Ibrahim’s health had continued to worsen in jail. “Ibrahim has lost seven kilos in ten days after his teeth got removed due to the severe diabetes condition,” Rasheed said. “On 16 July, the jail hospital authorities took the measurement to implant artificial teeth. They are yet to implant his teeth. He struggles to eat food. He is finding it difficult to wake up in the morning. He is drained ou