‘Who’s next?’: Modi government raids, arrests rivals before India election

Critics see a pattern in the arrests and raids — from academics to activists to opposition leaders.

New Delhi, India – Indian investigators have raided multiple premises linked with a prominent rights activist in the national capital – a move that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s critics say is part of a pattern that has seen his government targeting political opponents two months before general elections.

Officials of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday morning raided the residence of former bureaucrat Harsh Mander and the office of a think tank, the Centre for Equity Studies (CES) in New Delhi, linked to him, alleging financial irregularities under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act.

Mander served as an Indian Administrative Service officer for 22 years before he resigned in 2002 in the wake of the riots in Gujarat state when Modi was its chief minister. More than 1,000 people died in the violence, most of them Muslims, according to the state government.

Mander has been a fierce critic of the Modi government’s Hindu supremacist agenda since the prime minister’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in 2014.

But he is only the latest in a series of critics and opponents who have faced raids or arrests from federal agencies in recent weeks — including four state chief ministers belonging to opposition parties.

On Wednesday, India’s financial crimes agency, the Enforcement Directorate (ED), arrested Hemant Soren hours after he resigned as the chief minister of Jharkhand state. Soren is accused of corruption, a charge his party has denied.

Other opposition leaders, including Tejashwi Yadav, the former deputy chief minister of neighbouring Bihar state, and Arvind Kejriwal, the chief minister of