People’s Union for Democratic Rights — 2019 March 8, 2019 PUDR protests the illegal arrest of Niyamgiri Suraksha Samiti member Lingaraj Azad, who has been at the forefront of the peoples struggle against bauxite mining in the Niyamgiri hills, and the continuing repression against the people through routine detention of NSS leaders, security camps, patrolling and raids on villages. Lingaraj Azad was detained and arrested on 6 March in Lanjigarh when two FIRs against him, one of April 2017 and another of February 2019, were resuscitated, in continuation of the trend under the current regime where retributive FIRs are used as ticking time bombs against activists and dissenters. The FIR of April 2017 accuses him of unlawful assembly, rioting with weapons, wrongful restraint, criminal conspiracy, among others under the IPC, for his participation in a protest outside Vedanta’s Alumina Plant. The FIR of February 2019 contains accusations of unlawful assembly, rioting, singing obs...