The continual following of jailed gangster Atiq Ahmed being taken to Uttar Pradesh by road, including shots of him relieving himself, dragged mainstream television coverage to a new low.

This was all done mostly to evade the massive show of strength by Opposition parties in Delhi, outraged by issues around the action taken by the Lok Sabha Secretariat against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and refusal to answer any question on Gautam Adani.

Indian democracy is threatened and shrinks each time citizens are brazenly deprived of fundamental freedoms. As ominous events in UP’s Moradabad show, the risks to India’s secular democratic structure are severe, when a family is fined for a routine practice in the month of Ramzan of reading and reciting the Quran collectively. Will the RSS and Bajrang Dal now decide what best practices of faith are? Will the Indian state stand by the bullying of large sections of our people?

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