New Delhi: The investigation into the ‘toolkit’ case against climate activist Disha Ravi, which had been hailed as a big reveal into the alleged conspiracy behind the still ongoing farmers’ protests, has not progressed significantly in the last nine months, leading officials to consider filing a closure report, Indian Express has exclusively reported.
Ravi was arrested by the Delhi Police on February 13, for editing a manual that highlighted methods which one could use to support India’s protesting farmers.
Having booked Ravi for sedition and criminal conspiracy behind the January 26 violence in the national capital, Delhi Police had held that the ‘toolkit‘ shared by international climate activist Greta Thunberg and worked upon by Ravi, along with advocate Nikita Jacob and engineer Shantanu Muluk, had connections to the Poetic Justice Foundation (PJF) and that this was a ‘pro-Khalistani’ organisation led by Mo Dhaliwal and Anita Lal, who are also pro-Khalistan.
Her arrest had been widely criticised as the government’s attempt to crack down on the farmers’ protest and those supporting it and also met with international condemnation. While granting her bail, a Delhi court said police action against Ravi had been based on “scanty and sketchy” evidence.
An unnamed senior official that Indian Express spoke to said that police had found that Ravi and Jacob were “allegedly on a Zoom call with PFJ’s Mo Dhaliwal, who is based in Canada,” prior to January 26. The Cyber Cell wrote to Zoom in February, but have not received a response yet.
An officer from the Cyber Cell said they wrote to US video communication platform Zoom in February itself, but have not received any response.
Investigators faced the same issue when they contacted Google for information about the ‘toolkit’ document. The UK group Extinction Rebellion for which Jacob and Shantanu work, has also been unresponsive, Express has reported.
“Investigating officers are also learnt to have questioned Ravi after she was released on bail, but have not been able to conclusively link her to the “criminal conspiracy” behind the January 26 violence,” the report said.
The newspaper has quoted unnamed sources close to the investigation as having said that given the current scenario, police will likely not be able to file a chargesheet into the case and could be looking at filing a closure report instead.
Also read: Did the Police and Magistrate Follow Statutory Procedure in Disha Ravi’s Arrest?
Ravi has in police and judicial custody for a total of 10 days, during which time mainstream media vilified her climate activism and popularised the word ‘toolkit‘.
“It’s no surprise that in the days that followed [her arrest], my autonomy was violated; my photographs were splashed all over the news; my actions were pronounced guilty – not in the court of law, but on flat screens by seekers of TRPs. I sat there, unaware of the many abstractions made of me in order to satiate their idea of me,” Ravi had said in a statement after getting bail.