Mumbai: For music lovers, while the Coldplay concert promises to be an exciting event to look forward to, for those incarcerated at the Taloja Central Jail located on the outskirts of Mumbai, the next three days of the concert come with an unintended consequence: missing their scheduled court and hospital visits.
Earlier this week, the Navi Mumbai police informed the Taloja prisons that starting January 18, the police guards assigned the job of ferrying incarcerated persons from Taloja prisons to courts in and around Mumbai, and to hospitals in case of medical emergencies, won’t be available, as they have been reassigned to provide security at the Coldplay concert at Navi Mumbai’s D.Y. Patil Stadium scheduled for January 18, 19 and 21.
This nonavailability of prison guards is to continue until January 21, the notice has stated.
In response to the Navi Mumbai police’s decision to deprive the prisoners of their chance to have their cases heard, those still incarcerated in the Elgar Parishad case are considering going on a hunger strike starting Monday (January 20).
Advocate and human rights defender Surendra Gadling, one of the 16 persons arrested six and a half years ago and still languishing in prison, issued a notice to the Navi Mumbai Police commissioner through the Taloja Jail superintendent on behalf of the remaining persons incarcerated in the case.
His son, Sumit, also a practicing lawyer, confirmed to The Wire that Gadling decided to wait until the end of January 19 before deciding whether to start the hunger strike.
“In 2022, my father had filed a case against the then superintendent of the Taloja prison, and that case had come up for hearing today. He was not taken to Panvel court for the hearing, and the same excuse – that the guards are not present – was given by the prison authorities,” Sumit said.
Sumit pointed to a government resolution issued in 2018, which states that 239 dedicated police guards are to be deputed to the Taloja Central Prison, with their assignments pre-decided – escorting prisoners to courts and hospitals as needed.
Sources at the Navi Mumbai police confirmed that they have directed the guards to the concert as there is a requirement for it.
But this decision clearly comes at the cost of the personal liberty and the fundamental rights of the prisoners.
This is not the first time that the activists and academics arrested in the Elgar Parishad case have gone on hunger strike. Just as recently as October 2024, seven persons, including Gadling, Delhi University professor Hany Babu, prisoners’ rights activist Rona Wilson, cultural activists Sagar Gorkhe and Ramesh Gaichor, editor and writer of Vidrohi magazine Sudhir Dhawale, and tribal rights activist Mahesh Raut, went on hunger strike when they were not produced before courts for their regular hearings.
Some of these activists have been incarcerated for close to seven years, but the trial has yet to start.
Some of them, like Gadling, are presenting their own case, and his absence from the court means that he also misses out on the chance to move urgent applications before it.
The hunger strike in October had prompted jail authorities to act immediately, and the activists arrested in the Elgar Parishad case were produced before the court with special permission.
