It is a battle that this 24-year-old assistant director has vowed to take it to its conclusive end, even if single-handedly
Shikha, 24, daughter of a ‘Naxal’, is determined to fight for his release
It is a battle that this 24-year-old assistant director has vowed to take it to its conclusive end, even if single-handedly. With her father Pradeep Rahi, 49, labelled a commander of Naxalite movement in Uttarakhand, his daughter Shikha has been waging a lonely battle for the last five months.
Rahi was arrested by the police in December 2007 and has been lodged at the Dehradhun prison ever since. Police allege that this M.Tech, who worked as a journalist for The Statesman, was also an activist “waging war against the nation”. He has been charged with sedition.
“I know he is innocent,” said Shikha, who worked as an assistant director for the Aamir Khan-starrer Taare Zameen Par. “He worked for people’s rights. Is that terrorism? The state has strange arm-twisting tactics,” said Shikha, who stays with her grandparents at Vile Parle.
For the last five months Shikha has been shuttling between Dehradhun and Mumbai with the countless jail visits to meet her father and meeting higher ups in the bureaucracy and the police top brass to present her side of the story. As per the police records, Rahi was arrested from Hanspur, a forest area on December 22.
“However, when I met him days after his arrest, he told me he was picked up on December 17. He narrated stories of police torture which I just could not stomach,” said Shikha. She says her movements were being constantly tracked by intelligence agencies and her phone was tapped. “Everyone who goes to meet my father is photographed and is later harassed by the police. No jail manual says that visitors should be photographed,” she said.
She approached National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to narrate her story but they just would not listen. However, despite all doors closing on her, Shikha was determined to fight her case. “The last five months has made me wiser. I know I can’t take anything for granted,” she said.
Her father’s ordeal is made bearable after the court granted him permission to read in prison. “I take bagfuls of books on Indian history. I hope my conviction that he is innocent pays off.”
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