Field Notes: Chasing Shadows In Karnataka
MOHIT M RAO
X came to meet me with four others, who stared at me while I interviewed him. His fiery red beard contrasted with his timid countenance.
X was charged under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), India’s anti-terrorism law, with the Karnataka state police claiming he was among those who had organised a riot against a local who had posted anti-Islamic material.
The incident was what the UAPA Database, developed at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, termed a “communal” use of the anti-terror law in Karnataka.
In 2024 and 2025, I made multiple trips to attempt to track individuals in this database. There was some precedence to this reporting journey. A few years ago, armed with Article 14’s sedition database, I’d travelled across the state in a rickety rental car with the basic outline of a travel plan.
I inquired, as sensitively as I could, at villages mentioned in court documents. Except for a village where a mob threatened to burn the rental car, the two-week reporting expedition went beyond my expectations: it led to interviews of at least 15 persons accused of sedition.
But for the UAPA, I realised quickly that those people charged with it retreated into the shadows. Weeks were spent in dingy law offices in the futile hope that lawyers could convince their clients to talk to me.
On a couple of occasions, I managed to trace the accused’s numbers, only to be quickly blocked after our initial conversation. When I landed up at their homes or shops, I’d be shunned or shooed away by family or neighbours.
By the time I’d come to the dusty central Karnataka town where the riots had taken place, I had run out of ideas. The nervous, restless energy of fieldwork—where one’s mind runs on overdrive, imagining all the last-minute calls to be made and leads to be pursued—had turned to exhaustion.
The interview with X was not critical for the story I wanted to write.
The riots and the political fallout were well-documented. The interview wouldn’t address the specific gaps I wanted to report on, especially those of those who pleaded guilty when charged under the law or have been accused of being part of proscribed terror groups.
Of the four who accompanied him, a well-dressed man who had a calm confidence about him caught my attention. He’d supplement X’s answers with specifics on the UAPA law or prior Supreme Court judgments.
After the interview, I couldn’t resist and asked him how he knew so much about the law.
“Because I was convicted under UAPA,” he said. “I pleaded guilty.”
At the time, there was not much reportage on the increasing instances of UAPA accused pleading guilty. His interview started this exploration for the series.
Serendipity would play a crucial role in organising interviews. On one of the trips, I decided to visit a small-time lawyer (who had once handled a UAPA case, but I had little hope). The lawyer was not there, but I decided to sit in the waiting room until my next appointment.
My neighbour began a conversation about the civil case he was fighting. His interest piqued when I told him I was a reporter. I contemplated being furtive about the kind of story I was working on, but decided to be honest. I was working on a story about the UAPA law.
“Then you should talk to him,” he said as he pointed to the person who was next to him. “He had pleaded guilty after being charged under UAPA.”
The biggest hurdle in the reporting was meeting people. UAPA engulfs them in fear: some, telling me that they wonder if I work for the Agency (National Investigation Agency). Once some trust was established, it was apparent they wanted their story told—to have a version other than the government’s printed somewhere.
I showed up at Z’s home using an address from a decade-old court document. He was arrested for allegedly collaborating with a Bangladeshi terror group. His aged, illiterate mother pulled out a number that was scribbled on a bank passbook. When I called Z, he was understandably in shock. It had been more than a decade since his arrest.
“Wait for me there, I’ll pick you up.”
Z came on his moped and asked me to hop on. He was a well-built man, with broad shoulders and a shirt one size too tight. We rode through agricultural fields and eucalyptus plantations until we reached a temple that rose from a clearing in the forest. Z, a devout Hindu, said that the allegations in court documents were false.
“I brought you here because I want you to know that whatever I am saying is in front of this God,” he said. “It is the truth.”
You can read our four-part UAPA series here, here, here and here.
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