Arrests – Journalists

A couple who were arrested by the Uttar Pradesh special task force in February 2010 and suspected of being Naxals have been sentenced to life imprisonment by a lower court in Allahabad.

Seema Azad and her husband Vishwa Vijay were found guilty of waging war against the state, criminal conspiracy under various sections of the Unlawful Activities Prevention act. The case against the two was being tried for more than two and half years in the Court of the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrates in Allahabad.

They were detained in the Khuldabad area of Allahabad on February 3, 2010, while they were returning from Seema’s brother’s house in Delhi. Banned Maoist literature and Rs 40,000 were found on Azad and her husband Vishwa Vijay which the police claimed was being used to exhort people to become Naxals.

32-year-old Seema Azad, a Master in Psychology from Allahabad University was the Organising Secretary of People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) in Uttar Pradesh. She also edited a magazine called Dastak.