A Delhi court on Saturday reserved orders in Disha Ravi’s bail plea for Tuesday, February 23, a day after her judicial custody ends. The 22-year-old climate activist Disha, who was arrested on February 13 in connection with the probe into the ‘toolkit’ or the Google document on farmers’ protests, has been sent to judicial custody till February 22. Disha had earlier spent five days in police custody.
Additional Sessions Judge Dharmender Rana questioned the Additional Solicitor General (ASG) SV Raju about the material evidence incriminating Disha Ravi. He also questioned what was the connection between the ‘toolkit’ or Google document with the violence that took place in Delhi on January 26 during the tractor parade by farmers protesting against the farm laws.
Appearing for the Delhi police, Additional Solicitor General (ASG) SV Raju opposed bail for Disha and said that it was not a simple ‘toolkit', that the ‘toolkit’ preceded the violence that took place in Delhi on January 26 and that it was linked to the Khalistani movement through the Poetic Justice Foundation (PJF), a Canada based organisation. However, the ASG said that the PJF was not a banned organisation.
Alongside Disha, two others - lawyer Nikita Jacob and activist Shantanu Muluk, both residents of Maharashtra, are named as accused persons in the case.
Appearing for Disha, her lawyer Siddharth Agrawal argued that she is a 22-year-old living in Bengaluru and her history has nothing to do with Khalistan. The counsel also submitted that the other two co-accused in the case, Nikita and Shantanu, have been granted pre-arrest transit bail by the Bombay High Court. “On February 22, Shantanu will come with protection from Bombay High Court and I'll have to be in custody?” Disha’s counsel asked the court.
“If highlighting the farmer protests on the global platform is sedition, then I am guilty. If thinking otherwise is a problem, we're lowering the bar of thinking that someone may have an opinion different from ours,” Agrawal said. “If telling people that there is something that has happened or could happen is sedition, we should shut down all internet everywhere,” he argued.
Agarwal: For instance, if there is yoga. And I prefer kung fu over yoga. Will I become a chinese spy? I'm not saying this. It's in their FIR. We're reducing the bar of someone having a different point of view. #DishaRavi#Toolkit
— Live Law (@LiveLawIndia) February 20, 2021
“Their allegations in the FIR state that I have attacked chai and yoga. Is this the parameter for sedition?” Agrawal asked. “Nobody arrested in connection with Red Fort violence has said that he was inspired by the toolkit. There is no evidence to show that the toolkit is responsible for violence during farmers' march,” he added.
“The problem is that I spoke to Greta Thunberg and convinced her to support farmers’ issues by a tweet.. the tweet is not about Khalistan movement. If my inputs to Greta Thunberg have to be looked into, then kindly consider that her tweet is only for the farmers' protest, not for anything else,” Disha’s lawyer said.
During the hearing, Delhi police’s counsel SV Raju said that Nikita and Shantanu got in touch with members of the Poetic Justice Foundation through a Zoom call on 11 January 2021. He also mentioned the ‘toolkit’ or the online document on farmers' protests. The ‘toolkit’ or the online document was shared by Greta Thunberg with outdated dates and was later deleted and replaced with one containing newer dates.
“The ‘toolkit’ may look innocuous but it is not. After some drafting, it was shared on WhatsApp group for comments. It was finally shared with the Poetic Justice Foundation.There was no reason for this,” SV Raju said during the hearing, as reported by Livelaw. The ASG added that PJF was founded by Mo Dhaliwal in March 2020 and that it had shared content supporting Khalistan on its social media pages.
After the Zoom call, Nikita, Shantanu and Ravi discussed the meeting on WhatsApp and the ‘toolkit’ was created on January 20, the prosecutor for Delhi police Irfan Ahmed said in court.
The ASG further added that parts of the Google document or ‘toolkit’ were deleted after it was ‘leaked’ on social media. It is to be noted here that Greta Thunberg tweeted the ‘toolkit’ in question and later tweeted an updated version on February 4. The updated version is still available online.
Here’s an updated toolkit by people on the ground in India if you want to help. (They removed their previous document as it was outdated.)#StandWithFarmers #FarmersProtesthttps://t.co/ZGEcMwHUNL
— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) February 3, 2021
The contention made by Delhi police in the FIR is that the tractor parade in Delhi by farmers protesting the farm laws on January 26 turned violent “as a result of the said instigation by elements behind this document and its toolkit.” The ASG repeatedly stated that there was no need to share the toolkit with members of the Poetic Justice Foundation.
The bail hearing comes a day after a Delhi court sent climate change activist Disha Ravi to three further days of judicial custody. Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Akash Jain sent Disha to jail after Delhi Police produced her before the court on expiry of her five-day custodial interrogation.
Police said that her custodial interrogation was not required for the time being and the agency may seek her further interrogation once her co-accused - Shantanu Mukul and Nikita Jacob - join the interrogation. Police said Disha was evasive during her previous interrogation and shifted the blame onto the co-accused.
Mukul and Jacob have been asked to appear before Delhi police on February 22, the agency told the court. The defence lawyer opposed the police plea and urged the court to release Ravi.
He further said that there was an apprehension of tampering of the evidence by police as "the case diary is not properly made...and in volume form. There's no ground to keep her in any custody, police custody or judicial custody. I (Ravi) ought to be released right now," he said.
Hours after Disha was sent to judicial custody, international climate activist Greta Thunberg on Friday reacted to her arrest for the first time. Greta extended her support to Disha and said that an individual’s rights to freedom of speech, peaceful protest and assembly are non-negotiable. Greta’s response came hours after the India chapter of Fridays for Future (FFF), a global movement inspired by her, expressed solidarity with Disha. The 22-year-old climate activist based in Bengaluru was a volunteer with FFF, and helped organise events in the city.
It is to be noted that toolkits are nothing but Google Documents or Word documents often used to organise a social media campaign or to plan protests. A toolkit contains basic information on any issue, tweet suggestions and information on what hashtags to use, whom to tag on social media, etc. These documents are regularly used by various individuals and groups, including political parties, to organise social media campaigns and mobilise crowds.