A group of six Democratic lawmakers in the US have written to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, expressing deep concern over what they described as a pattern of “repression, wrongful detention, and excessive use of force” against student protesters in India.
Somali-origin Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and Indian-origin Representative Pramila Jayapal are among the signatories, who called on Washington to take up issues pertaining to the handling of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP)-led stir with New Delhi.
The letter also raised alarm over “apparent surveillance and intimidation” of activists on American soil by individuals allegedly coordinating with Indian diplomatic missions.
“Members of American human rights organizations and the Indian diaspora who joined protests in Washington, D.C., Chicago and San Francisco in solidarity with the CJP student movement disclosed that they had been photographed by individuals who identified themselves as having been hired by the Indian Embassy and Consulates General, respectively,” they said.
This comes ahead of the scheduled talks between Rubio and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on October 20 in Mumbai.
Besides Omar and Jayapal, the other four US lawmakers who signed the letter are Jim McGovern, Rashida Tlaib, Eleanor Holmes Norton and Jesus “Chuy” Garcia.
The US lawmakers asserted that “tens of thousands” of people have taken to the streets in major cities across India since September 25 to protest the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter rolls.
They stressed that the exercise has “purged” the names of more than 130 million (13 crore) people from electoral rolls.
“While the Election Commission [of India] states that the purpose of the revision is to verify voter eligibility, U.N. human rights experts wrote the Government of India earlier this year to raise concerns that the process lacked transparency. They further noted that the process may introduce unreasonable or discriminatory barriers to voting that could disproportionately disenfranchise Muslims and other minority communities,” the letter read.
The Democratic Representatives also referred to what they called documented instances of Indian security forces using tear gas, pellet guns and batons against protestors.
Critics of the letter, meanwhile, have questioned the political neutrality of its signatories, arguing that the concerned lawmakers, in various ways, have demonstrated a longstanding bias against India.
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