Sir,

I am writing to thank the CC of the CGPI for its statement "Condemn the terrorist killings in Uttar Pradesh.'' I join the CC in its expression of anger at the loss of innocent lives and in its offer of condolences to the families of the victims. The Party has consistently maintained that organizing of terrorist strikes across the length and breadth of the country is part of the preferred policy of the state to cause confusion and to paralyze the people, indeed to derail the struggle for rights in the country. It is also a cover for the policy of repression and state terror, whose present victims happen to be primarily Muslim men and youth. By constantly raising the bogey of Islamic terror, the state has armed itself with greater and greater powers of detention, arrest and incarceration.

The present victims of terror happen to be lawyers in UP, which comes from what the statement describes as an englightened section of the society. It is my submission here that lawyers and others in the legal profession are now a deliberate target of state terror, and indeed of intelligence services, as many in this profession have played a very important role in the struggle for democratic rights in the country. At a great personal cost to their professional success, and against all odds, many brave lawyers have taken up cases to defend innocent victims of an unjust judicial system. It is as a result of this that they have become a target — a signal being sent to them not to take up cases of defence of those arrested under various anti-terrorism laws, against those organizing for rights of tribals, displaced, workers, and so on and so forth. I join your appeal to broad sections of society to not yield to terror and give up their struggle for rights in the country.

Sincerely,
A. Narayan,Bangalore