The president of the Faridabad District Bar Association has written to the chairperson of the Bar Council of Punjab and Haryana, requesting him to issue a call for strike against the arrest of human rights lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj, The Indian Express reported on Thursday.

Bharadwaj is among the five activists who are under house arrest in connection with the Bhima Koregaon violence case. Lawyers Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira, activist Gautam Navlakha, writer and activist Varavara Rao along with Bharadwaj are accused of having links to the outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoist).

“The Faridabad Bar Association stands in solidarity with advocate Sudha Bharadwaj and the lawyers who have been arrested on unproven charges and strongly protests the attack on the legal fraternity,” a letter signed by Faridabad District Bar Association President Vivek Kumar said. “We request the Bar Council of Punjab and Haryana to issue a call for a strike to highlight our resolve to defend our fraternity against witch-hunts.”

Kumar said the association was “deeply concerned” by the police action against human rights activists. He added that the arrests of Bharadwaj, Ferreira and Gonsalves on August 28 and the arrest of advocate Surendra Gadling in June 2018 “indicate an attack on lawyers who are defending the most marginalised and voiceless in society”.

On August 28, teams of the Pune Police raided the homes of several activists in Mumbai, Ranchi, Delhi, Faridabad and Goa as part of an investigation into a public meeting on December 31, a day before caste-related violence erupted in Bhima Koregaon.

The Supreme Court has stayed the transit remand of the arrested activists and ordered that they be placed under house arrest till September 12.