AIMMM condemns the illegal arrest of Feroze Mithiborwala and Kishore Jagtap Two Mumbai-based prominent human rights and social activists Feroze Mithiborwala and Kishore Jagtap were detained on July 17. Their detention seemingly took place in the context of the visit of the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton to the city. They were later released the next day without any charge.
All India Muslim Majlis-e Mushawarat President Dr Zafarul-Islam Khan condemned this overnight arrest of the two leaders. “It is illegal to limit the freedom of any Indian citizen who is not breaking any law. The Maharashtra state home minister should come clean on this violation of human and civil rights and should apologise to the two activists for this illegal act at the hands of Mumbai police,” Dr Khan said.
A number of lawyers, journalists, human and civil rights activists, including Mihir Desai, Yusuf Muchala, Sukla Sen, Jatin Desai, Yogesh Kamdar, Seema Mustafa, and others also expressed their sense of shock and horror on this illegal detention of two activists. “The right to dissent, and dissent in public, is what sets a ‘democracy’ apart from an authoritarian regime. And we never tire of claiming, and not too unjustifiably, that India is the ‘largest democracy’ in the world. It is precisely in that context, the action of the Mumbai Police is extremely unfortunate and utterly condemnable,” they said in a statement. “We demand that the state Home Minister immediately take note and act against the erring officials. He should also issue a note of apology as the buck presumably stops at his door,” they added.