Summary:
"We protest this and demand that all the concocted charges against the rights activists should be withdrawn and they be freed unconditionally," he said. "They (the five activists arrested in multi-city raids last Tuesday) are all very learned and scholarly people. They have also been protesting against the wholesale privatisation of our natural resources. They have been protesting against the indiscriminate exploitation of the natural and mineral resources by the corporates in adivasi and tribal areas. Do citizens in a democracy have the right to peacefully criticise and protest the actions and policies of the government?".