New Delhi: The Campaign Against State Repression (CASR), a collective of various organisations, has unequivocally condemned the arrest of Priyanshu Kashyap, a former student at the Department of History, Delhi University, by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Tuesday, July 29.
He was earlier picked up by the Haryana Crime Investigation Agency (CIA) from Hisar district around July 26-27, and was later arrested and taken to Lucknow by the NIA in connection with the alleged Lucknow Conspiracy Case.
According to the statement released by CASR on Thursday, July 31, the Centre has been trying to intimidate and harass him for his activism since December 2024, when his rented room was raided by the NIA in connection with the same case along with other activists.
Priyanshu, an activist from an Adivasi community from Bastar region in Chhattisgarh, is known to have stood for the rights of students, workers, peasants, Adivasis, women, Dalits, religious minorities, and other oppressed sections of society.
As a student at Delhi University, he was involved in student activism, fighting against fee hikes, paper leaks, and advocating for a democratic and equitable campus. He also raised concerns for the oppressed and exploited masses of the country, speaking out against the genocidal war on the Adivasis in Central India and the exploitation of their resources.
After completing his master’s in history, despite qualifying for a Junior Research Fellowship (JRF), he chose to work with the working class. He was working with the Delhi General Mazdoor Front (DGMF), a labour rights organisation based in New Delhi, when his room was raided by the NIA, the statement read.
“Agencies like the NIA and draconian laws like the UAPA, along with tactics of red-tagging with cases such as the Lucknow Conspiracy Case, are weapons in the hands of the state to harass and arrest activists and silence dissent. Priyanshu’s role as a student activist, and later as part of a labour rights organisation advocating for the workers’ rights, may have brought him into the state’s crosshairs,” read the statement.
“Lucknow Conspiracy Case that started in September 2023 with targeting activists in UP, Haryana, Delhi, Punjab has now become a weapon in the hands of the state for a wider crackdown on students, labour rights activists, advocates, journalists, intellectuals and others,” CASR alleged.
The organisations also accused the NIA of cooking up the “Maoists’ North Region Bureau (NRB) Revival case,” or the Lucknow Conspiracy Case, in an attempt to arrest, threaten and silence dissent.
“They claim that Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, UP, and Bihar have many social activists who are Over Ground Workers (OGW) of the Communist Party of India (CPI) Maoist. By labelling these activists and their activities to be CPI (Maoist)’s reconstruction of the NRB, it tries to legitimise raids, harassment and arrests,” the collective alleged.
The activists observed that this is nothing but a similar attempt as that of the Bhima Koregaon conspiracy case, in which multiple activists from the working class, anti-displacement, peasant and cultural people’s movement across the country were labelled as OGW or urban naxals, and jailed.
Bhima Koregaon is a similar case in which tribal rights activist Father Stan Swamy was jailed and lost his life while in prison awaiting trial. He was 84 when he passed away on July 5, 2021, at Mumbai’s Taloja Jail.
CSAR sees this as a pattern of conspiracy cases being repeated through this new series of raids, search and seizures and arrest of democratic pro-people activists, while many of the prisoners are still behind bars and haven’t even been tried yet.
“It is notable that no charge has been filed yet against advocate Ajay and Vishal Singh, arrested earlier in the Lucknow conspiracy case, as the state has been unable to do so. They are now targeting activists in other states to keep the case going. This, therefore, is the old tactic of Bhima Koregaon being used by the Indian state to crack down on all democratic voices, packaged in the new cover of Lucknow Conspiracy,” the statement read.
The collective believes that in the name of “war against Maoism” as announced by Union home minister Amit Shah, promising to bring an end to the movement by March 2026.
“The state has shamelessly and openly taken to new heights the war on Adivasi people fighting for their Jal-Jangal-Jameen through aerial bombing and fake encounters, and on social activists and democratic voices exposing the anti-people nature of the state through harassing, threatening, red-tagging and prolonged legal harassment,” the collective observed.
“They arrest individuals and treat them as guilty until proven innocent, contradicting the principles of natural justice. This attempt to silence the resistance and fighting voices of the exploited and oppressed masses has reached new heights since the introduction of Surajkund Scheme in 2022, which, in the name of ending “naxalism of pen,” targets activists, students, professors, intellectuals, labor rights activists, journalists, artists and all democratic voices,” CASR alleged.
Citing various judgements that it is not a crime under the law to believe in the ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism or even being a member of CPI (Maoist), the collective stated that prominent social activists, lawyers, trade union activists and human rights activists were being tagged as “overground workers” of the CPI (Maoist), and were being kept in jail without a trial for years.
CASR has asserted that it stood with Priyanshu Kashyap’s activism and demanded his release immediately, and the release of all political prisoners “falsely implicated in fabricated cases,” and to put an end to “such baseless cases” as the Lucknow Conspiracy case used to target and witch-hunt activists, and silence dissent.
“We appeal to all democratic and progressive sections of the society to stand with our activists and resist the Brahminical Hindutva Fascist crackdown on democratic freedoms,” the collective urged.
Organisations part of the Campaign Against State Repression
AIRSO, AISA, AISF, APCR, ASA, BASF, BSM, Bhim Army, BSCEM, CEM, COLLECTIVE, CRPP, CSM, CTF, DISSC, DSU, DTF, Forum Against Repression Telangana, Fraternity, IAPL, Innocence Network, Karnataka Janashakti, LAA, Mazdoor Adhikar Sangathan, Mazdoor Patrika, NAPM, Nazariya Magazine, Nishant Natya Manch, Nowruz, NTUI, People’s Watch, Rihai Manch, Samajwadi Janparishad, Samajwadi Lok Manch, Bahujan Samjavadi Manch, SFI, United Peace Alliance, WSS, and Y4S.
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