NEW DELHI: Police on Tuesday arrested five activists during simultaneous multi-city raids that began early in the day, in Mumbai, Thane, Hyderabad, Ranchi, Delhi and Faridabad. Police alleged these activists have links with the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist). The five arrested are activist-lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj (Faridabad), human rights activist-lawyer Arun Ferreira (Thane), lawyer Vernon Gonsalves (Mumbai), human rights activist Gautam Navlakha (Delhi) and revolutionary writer P Varavara Rao (Hyderabad).

Here are more details on the five people arrested:

Sudha Bharadwaj : She's a human rights lawyer and activist who's a member of and office bearer (national secretary) at the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL). Bharadwaj has worked in Chhattisgarh for close to three decades, as an advocate for the civil and human rights of Dalits, farmers, labourers and tribals; she also works against land acquisition on behalf of these groups.

Bhardwaj actually became a lawyer as late as in 2000. Since, she's been practicing in the Chhattisgarh high court. She is also a visiting professor at the National Law University, Delhi.

Bhardwaj is also associated with the Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha (Chhattisgarh Liberation Front) party founded by the later Shankar Guha Niyogi to fight for the cultural identity of the region and for the upliftment of workers and peasants.

In the past months, not only has she been accused of being sympathetic to the Maoists and their allegedly violent insurgency, she's also been targeted for allegedly receiving money from them.

Bharadwaj has consistently denied this. In a post she wrote in January for the website Sanhati, she described her work.

"As a human rights lawyer I have appeared in cases of habeas corpus and fake encounters of adivasis in the High Court of Chhattisgarh and also made representations to the National Human Rights Commission (NHTC) in the defence of many human rights defenders. Recently the NHRC had sought my assistance in investigating a case in Village Kondasawali (Sukma, Chhattisgarh). In all these cases I have acted with the professional integrity and courage expected of a human rights lawyer," wrote the activist.

Bharadwaj was arrested Tuesday from Faridabad.

Arun Ferreira: He is Mumbai-based human rights activist-lawyer and an alumnus of St Xavier's College, Mumbai.

Ferreira has been arrested before, in 2007, on charges of being a Naxal operative in 2007. He was eventually acquitted of all charges. The social work he did for an NGO, Navjawan Bharat Sabha was deemed "covert Naxalite activity". Over the four years after his arrest and imprisonment, 11 cases were filed against him variously under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act and the Arms Act; he was also charged with sedition, reported Mumbai Mirror. After his acquittal in 2011, as soon as he was released, Ferreira was arrested again and later granted bail later.

Following that, Ferreira completed his degree from Siddharth Law College and began working as a lawyer in December 2016 with another advocate Suresh Rajeshwar. Along with Rajeshwar, he became part of the 'Indian Association of People's Lawyers and the Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights.

"There was a time in my life when I thought it would be impossible to get out of jail, and yet, here I am, a degree in my hand and responsibility on my shoulder," he said to Mumbai Mirror in January 2016.

Ferreira was arrested on Tuesday from his Thane residence in Mumbai.

Vernon Gonsalves : Like Ferreira, Gonsalves was also arrested in 2007 after being accused of having links to banned Naxalite outfits. Gonsalves was convicted in June 2013 under various sections of Unlawful Activities (Preventions) Act and Arms Act. He had already undergone incarceration for the period he was sentenced for, so he was released immediately.

A former professor of business organization at a prominent Mumbai college, Gonsalves was labelled an ex-central committee member and former secretary of Maharashtra State Rajya Committee of the Naxalites by security agencies. He was charged in around 20 cases. Gonsalves was acquitted in 17 cases as the prosecution could not furnish enough evidence.

"It is for the society to decide what I am. But, I am certainly not a terrorist," said an overwhelmed Gonsalves immediately after his release in 2013. He also said that he intends to read the 251-page judgment before commenting on the long-drawn criminal justice system he told TOI back then.

Gautam Navlakha : He is a journalist, civil liberties, democratic, and human rights and has long been associated with the People's Union for Democratic Right. He was once also an editor at the Economic and Political Weekly, a quasi-academic journal.

Navlakha has travelled to Kashmir several times and written about alleged rights violations in the troubled state. He is also a convenor of the International People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Kashmir. In 2011, he was stopped at Srinagar Airport and prevented from entering the state and turned back to Delhi. He was charged with Section 144 of the Indian Penal Code which is imposed against an individual or group for unlawful assembly with an intent to disrupt the peace.

Navlakha was arrested Tuesday in Delhi.

P Varavara Rao: Revolutionary writer, poet and critic Varavara Rao (78), has been a thorn in the flesh of successive governments in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Jailed many times, including during the Emergency, he was acquitted in several cases. He has been active on human rights.

Rao was arrested from his Hyderabad residence on Tuesday.

(With inputs from Agencies)

