Mihir Desai | |
---|---|
Nationality | Indian |
Occupation | Lawyer |
Known for | Human rights activism |
Mihir Desai is a human rights lawyer [1] in cases of mass murders and riots, [2] [3] [4] fake encounter and custodial deaths by the police, [5] [6] police brutality, freedom of speech and journalists, [7] [8] political activists and prisoners of conscience, [9] [10] excesses by the state, [11] mass disappearances and deaths and genocide probes. [12] A senior counsel, he has been practicing criminal matters in Bombay High Court, Mumbai and the Supreme Court of India.
Mihir Desai is the son of Neera Desai, a leading advocate of Women's Rights in India, and Dr. A.R. Desai, one of India's pioneering Marxian sociologists.
Desai is the son of Neera Desai, (1925-2009), a leading advocate of Women's rights from a middle-class Gujarati family. [13] As a child he traveled with his mother to Rome and to the United States, where she had a one-year teaching assignment. His uncle ran a firm of solicitors. [14] Desai is a co-founder of the Indian People's Tribunal (IPT) and the Human Rights Law Network, and is a former director of the India Center for Human Rights and Law. [15] He was co-founder with lawyer Colin Gonsalves of the human rights magazine Combat Law. [16] Desai addresses subjects that include illegal acts by the authorities, police brutality and sexual assault. He has assisted survivors of the 2002 Gujarat massacre. He was co-editor of the book Women and Law (1999). [15] He is an invited member of the India Regional Team of the "Promoting Pluralism Knowledge Programme". [17]
In 2003 Desai was assisting the Asian Human Rights Commission in their fight on behalf of Adivasi people to remain on land claimed by the Maharashtra State Farming Corporation. [18] Desai was co-convenor with Angana P. Chatterji of an IPT team that investigated communal violence in Orissa over a 20-month period in 2005/2006 and co-editor of the report that presented the findings. [19] Desai was legal counsel to the International People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Kashmir, and co-signatory to a February 2009 letter to Omar Abdullah, Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, that requested action to address the abuses the tribunal had found. [20]
In April 2012 Mihir Desai won an unusually large award to the mother of a 2002 bomb blast suspect who had died in custody. He also solved the case of most dangerous Gangster Sukha Kahlon. Sukha Kahlon was charged 8 murder case. Chair of Justice announced 4 year sentence to Gangster Sukha Kahlon alias Sharp Shooter from Jalandhar, his right hand Anand Dutta alias King Khalifa Sharp Shooter from Amritsar and his left hand Preet alias Preet Phagwara from Chandigarh, in the crime of Arm act, Murder, Money Laundering, Kidnapping and in more crime. But later they all get free from this case. These notorious Gangsters has their name in the top 10 Gangsters of Punjab. Even some of Gangster Sukha Kahlon's friends have not any FIR or case in any Police department, as police faced fear of their own murder.
Four police officers had been charged, and the government was to recover the money from these officers. [21] The government refused a plea to prosecute ten other officers who had allegedly been involved. [22]
On 4 February 2020, Mihir Desai was arrested along with 16 persons for alleged unlawful assembly in connection with the protest at the Gateway of India against the violence at Jawaharlal Nehru University. All of them were released on bail after arrest on personal bonds. [23]
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)The 2002 Gujarat riots, also known as the 2002 Gujarat violence or the Gujarat pogrom, was a three-day period of inter-communal violence in the western Indian state of Gujarat. The burning of a train in Godhra on 27 February 2002, which caused the deaths of 58 Hindu pilgrims and karsevaks returning from Ayodhya, is cited as having instigated the violence. Following the initial riot incidents, there were further outbreaks of violence in Ahmedabad for three months; statewide, there were further outbreaks of violence against the minority Muslim population of Gujarat for the next year.
Dara Singh is an Indian convicted murderer and a Bajrang Dal activist. He was previously a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He was convicted for leading a mob and setting fire to the station wagon in which the Australian Christian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons were asleep, burning them all alive, in Orissa.
The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act is an Indian law aimed at the prevention of unlawful activities associations in India. Its main objective was to make powers available for dealing with activities directed against the integrity and sovereignty of India. The most recent amendment of the law, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Act, 2019 has made it possible for the Union Government to designate individuals as terrorists without following any formal judicial process. UAPA is also known as the "Anti-terror law".
The Zakura And Tengpora Massacre was the killing of protesters calling for the implementation of a United Nations resolution regarding the plebiscite in Kashmir at Zakura Crossing and Tengpora Bypass Road in Srinagar on 1 March 1990, in which 26 people were killed and 14 injured by Indian forces. It led Amnesty International to issue an appeal for urgent action on Kashmir.
Parvez Imroz is a Kashmiri human rights lawyer and a civil rights activist in Srinagar, the summer capital of the Jammu and Kashmir, India.
Angana P. Chatterji is an Indian anthropologist, activist, and feminist historian, whose research is closely related to her advocacy work and focuses mainly on India. She co-founded the International People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Kashmir and was a co-convener from April 2008 to December 2012.
ANHAD is an Indian socio-cultural organization established in March 2003, as a response to 2002 Gujarat riots. Social activist Shabnam Hashmi, sister of the slain activist Safdar Hashmi and founder of SAHMAT, Marxian historian Prof. K N Panikkar and social activist Harsh Mander are the founding members of ANHAD. Based in Delhi, ANHAD works in the field of secularism, human rights and communal harmony. ANHAD's activities include secular mobilization, sensitizing people about their democratic rights as enshrined in Indian Constitution, research and publication of books and reports, welfare programs for marginalised sections of society, launching creative mass mobilization campaigns. People's tribunals. It also work as a pressure group among political circle to take action against communalism. ANHAD plays a major role in Gujarat to fight against human right violations, as well as in the Kashmir Valley.
The Caravan is an Indian English-language, long-form narrative journalism magazine covering politics and culture.
The Indian People's Tribunal (IPT), also called the Indian People's Tribunal on Environmental and Human Rights or Independent People's Tribunal, was a People's Tribunal set up by the Human Rights Law Network (HRLN) on 5 June 1993. The IPT is an unofficial body led by retired judges who form a panel that conducts public enquiries into human rights and environmental abuses. It provides an alternative outlet for the victims faced with official obstruction and delays. Since being founded the IPT has conducted numerous investigations into cases of relocation of rural people to make way for dams or parks, eviction of slum dwellers, industrial pollution and communal or state-sponsored violence.
K. K. Usha was an Indian judge who served as Chief Justice of the Kerala High Court. She was the first female judge on the High Court. She advocated for women's rights and for the elimination of all forms of discrimination. Usha served as president of the Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal.
Subash Chouhan was the national President of the Bajrang Dal, a Hindutva organization in India that is the youth wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP).
Sudhir Pattnaik is a journalist and a social activist from Orissa, India. He is the editor of Samadrusti, a fortnightly political and social news magazine in the Odia language published from Bhubaneswar.
Kashmir: The Case for Freedom is a collection of essays by Tariq Ali, Hilal Bhat, Angana P. Chatterji, Habbah Khatun, Pankaj Mishra and Arundhati Roy, published by Verso.
International People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Kashmir (IPTK) is a People's Tribunal formed by Indian human rights activists for the purpose of probing human right violations in the Indian-administered territory of Jammu and Kashmir, and bridging the gap between people living in Kashmir and rest of India. It was first convened in 2008 by Parvez Imroz, Angana P. Chatterji, Gautam Navlakha and Zaheer-Ud-Din. Chatterji served as convener until December 2012.
Gautam Navlakha is an Indian human rights activist, journalist, and prisoner. He has written on left-wing extremism and is a critic of army and state atrocities in Kashmir. He is a member of People's Union for Democratic Rights, Delhi. He is also an editorial consultant of the Economic and Political Weekly. He resides in New Delhi.
Shehla Rashid Shora is an Indian human rights activist who has pursued her Ph.D. at Jawaharlal Nehru University. She was vice-president of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union (JNUSU) in 2015–16 and was a member of the All India Students Association (AISA). She rose to prominence whilst leading the student agitation calling for the release for Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid and others who were arrested on charges of sedition in February 2016 for participating and organizing sloganeering in JNU.
Khurram Parvez is a Kashmiri human rights activist. He is the chairperson of Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) and the program coordinator of Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society. Khurram is a recipient of the 2006 Reebok Human Rights Award. Parvez was included in Time's annual list of the 100 most influential people in 2022.
Amnesty International India was a country unit of the Amnesty International network, and was part of a global movement promoting and defending human rights and dignity. In September 2020, Amnesty halted its operations in the country after all bank accounts of the organization were frozen by Enforcement Directorate in connection with its money laundering probe into the finances of Amnesty International and its related entities. The organization called this as 'witch hunting' while the government of India said ED case is based on a FIR filed by CBI against Amnesty for alleged violation of the Foreign Contributions Regulatory Act
Akshay Ramanlal Desai was an Indian sociologist, Marxist and a social activist. He was Professor and Head of the Department of Sociology in University of Bombay in 1967. He is particularly known for his work Social Background of Indian Nationalism in which he offered a Marxist analysis of the genesis of Indian nationalism making use of history, which set a path to build socialism in India.
Mass graves of Jammu and Kashmir are mass grave sites in Jammu and Kashmir that were created as a result of extra-judicial killings during the Insurgency in Kashmir. An ad-hoc inquiry led by human rights lawyer, Parvez Imroz, has found more than 6,000 unmarked and mass graves.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link){{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)