GUWAHATI: Axom Nagarik Samaj, a civil society organization led by former Assam DGP and noted intellectual and author Harekrishna Deka , has termed the police crackdown on activists for having alleged Maoist links as a 'plot' to divert public attention from the BJP-led government's 'failure'."They (the five activists arrested in multi-city raids last Tuesday) are all very learned and scholarly people. For decades they have fighting for the rights of Adivasis and other marginalised people. They have been protesting against the indiscriminate exploitation of the natural and mineral resources by the corporates in adivasi and tribal areas. They have also been protesting against the wholesale privatisation of our natural resources. Do citizens in a democracy have the right to peacefully criticise and protest the actions and policies of the government?" Deka said in a news conference here on Monday."We protest this and demand that all the concocted charges against the rights activists should be withdrawn and they be freed unconditionally," he said.

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