Hyderabad: Several activists and residents of Hyderabad staged a protest on Monday, April 20, demanding the release of those arrested for supporting the labour movement in Noida.
Protestors accused the Uttar Pradesh police of adopting “repressive and conspiratorial measures” against workers demanding wage hikes.
They said that instead of finding the real cause behind the April 13 violence, the state government has taken to blaming labour activists, terming them ‘urban naxals’ and linking them to Pakistan.
The protestors said that five labour activists, Rupesh, Maneesha, Aditya, Akriti and Shrishti, have been arrested and levelled with false charges of inciting violence through WhatsApp groups.
Defending the arrested activists, the protestors said that social activists and independent journalists have come forward with evidence that it was people associated with senior officers of UP police who posted provocative messages in WhatsApp groups, while those accused by the police had only called for a peaceful and non-violent demonstration.
They accused the UP Police of undertaking a “witch hunt” of intellectuals and activists supporting the movement on social media and said that in Lucknow, police raided a progressive bookstore, Janchetna and abducted Satyam Varma, a senior journalist and editor of the collected works of Bhagat Singh in Hindi.
Saying that UP is witnessing a fascist repression of basic civil rights, the protestors demanded that the aforementioned intellectuals, activists, and labour supporters must be released unconditionally and all false charges against them be withdrawn immediately.
They also demanded that the police crackdown on the workers’ movement end and that a high-level judicial enquiry be undertaken into what led to the incidents of violence.
Finally, they demanded that workers’ minimum wages be increased to Rs 30,000 and that all their just demands be fulfilled.
This post was last modified on April 20, 2026 11:18 pm