PUDR condemns the arrest of Kranthi Chaitanya, Vice-President of the Civil Liberties Committee (Andhra Pradesh unit), and fellow activist Mohan Krishna on 9 January 2026, and their subsequent remand to judicial custody on 10 January. The FIR, based on a complaint filed by the President of the Sanatana Dharma Protection Committee, a resident of Tirupati, accuses them of erecting “provocative banners.” On this basis, a wide array of serious offences has been invoked, including promoting enmity between groups on religious grounds, acts endangering the sovereignty and integrity of India, obscenity, breach of peace, and criminal conspiracy among other, including insult to the Constitution and national symbols.
One of the banners cited in the FIR reads: “Civil Liberties Union- 20th State Conference, Tirupati, January 10-11, 2026. Let us fight for democracy. Punish Hindu extremists who are killing rationalists and democrats.” The banner features photographs of Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare, M.M. Kalburgi, and Gauri Lankesh- democratic voices who were assassinated between 2013 and 2017. In each of these cases, investigative findings have revealed links to Hindutva organisations and leaders, including the Sanatan Sanstha. Notably, accused persons in the assassinations of Gauri Lankesh and M.M. Kalburgi, who are currently out on bail, were publicly felicitated in Karnataka in February 2025 and described as “Hindu Tigers.” In a further erosion of accountability, one of the accused in the Lankesh murder, Shrikant Pangarkar, contested a civic election in Jalna, Maharashtra, on 15 January 2026.
A civil liberties organisation’s demand for justice and accountability for political murders is a legitimate and essential democratic exercise. The banners sought to expose these political alliances and to articulate opposition to Hindu fascism in defence of democracy. However, this political critique has been deliberately misrepresented in the FIR as an attack on a religious community, and has been used to allege communal disharmony.
It is significant that the activists have been arrested under Section 152 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), which has replaced the sedition provision of the Indian Penal Code. PUDR has previously noted that Section 152 has a far wider scope than the repealed sedition law and is marked by characteristic vagueness. The present arrests exemplify how this vagueness enables the criminalisation of protests and criticism of the government.
Another significant aspect of the FIR is the invocation of laws relating to national honour and the State Emblem. This is based on a satirical depiction of the Lion Capital, in which the lions are replaced with bull faces and the motto “Satyameva Jayate” is altered to read “Satyameva Parajayate,”/ Defeat of Truth which is quite obviously satire critiquing the contemporary political climate, where the accused of political assassinations have gone scott-free. The critical question is not merely the existence of statutory provisions exist that could be stretched to criminalise such expression, but whether the Constitution, through its guarantee of freedom of expression, protects such critical and dissenting speech, when the element of incitement to violence is absent.
Indian jurisprudence has consistently upheld this principle. Cartoonists and artists have repeatedly faced prosecution for creative expression, only for courts to affirm constitutional protection. In 2012, cartoonist Aseem Trivedi was charged with sedition for similar representations of national symbols. The Bombay High Court ruled that even if cartoons or visual depictions lack humour, this cannot justify curtailing free expression where there is no incitement to violence or intent to create public disorder. This has been the settled position well articulated by the Supreme Court in Shreya Singhal v. Union of India, which remains foundational to the protection of political speech, including speech that is critical or offensive.
More recently, the Supreme Court in a number of cases (here and here), has reiterated the long-settled standard, first articulated by the Nagpur High Court in 1945, that speech must be assessed from the perspective of reasonable persons, not those with weak or overly sensitive minds. These principles form the bedrock of constitutional protection for robust political critique.
The sections invoked in this case are non-bailable and carry a minimum sentence of seven years’ imprisonment. The arrests, coupled with the FIR’s expansive use of criminal conspiracy provisions, signal yet another attack on activists and civil liberties organisations, many of which are already under sustained pressure following the Bhima Koregaon arrests. Founded in 1974 APCLC is one of the earliest CL and DR organizations in India. It has consistently exposed rights violations in the form of fake encounters having been instrumental in the 2009 AP High Court decision that in all encounter cases FIRs be filed under Sec.302 (Murder) IPC against all participating police personnel. The APCLC has paid the price for demanding state accountability including in peasant and tribal rights cases, with several activists murdered into the 2000s, and frequent arrests, detentions and raids. In a context where political critique and free expression are increasingly under strain, these arrests are wholly unjustified and contribute to the rapid erosion of democratic freedoms essential to sustaining a democracy.
PUDR therefore demands the immediate and unconditional release of Kranthi Chaitanya and Mohan Krishna.
Deepika Tandon and Shahana Bhattacharya
(Secretaries)
