Noida: Allahabad high court’s order quashing law student and labour activist Aakriti Choudhary’s detention under stringent provisions of National Security Act (NSA) has come as a huge relief for her family in West Bengal’s Durgapur, for whom the last few months “were a nightmare”.Speaking to TOI on Thursday, a day after the court ordered compensation of Rs 5 lakh for the 25-year-old DU law student and described the police case against her as “concocted”, her father Arun Choudhary expressed confidence that Aakriti would finish her legal degree after coming out of jail and continue helping those in need. Choudhary, a full-time CPM worker, runs the South Bengal edition of the party’s mouthpiece Ganashakti.Aakriti has been named in 11 FIRs by Noida police and is accused of instigating violence during an industrial workers’ protest for higher minimum wages in the city on April 13. She was slapped with NSA charges in May. Though the court ordered her immediate release in the NSA case, Aakriti remains in jail for now, having secured bail in just five of the 11 cases so far.Choudhary said he is anguished by the hardships faced by his daughter. “But the family is proud of Aakriti’s dedication to serving the poor and downtrodden. She has been a brilliant student with compassion for society. Even while studying at Daulat Ram College, she volunteered at anganwadi centres, raised her voice in support of workers and taught children in her free time,” the emotional father said.Aakriti, who had cleared the NET examination but could not enrol in a doctoral programme after her arrest, plans to continue with a law degree from Delhi University once released, with her family’s support to resume her social work and theatre, according to him.Choudhary acknowledged that Aakriti’s release could still take time. “My daughter is mentally prepared to remain in jail for some more time and has been teaching the children of jail personnel and other inmates, along with her co-prisoner Srishti (who is facing similar charges in 11 FIRs),” he said.Choudhary said the family’s apprehension of prolonged detention stemmed from the process adopted by UP Police. “Aakriti was named in four cases, and after the state invoked NSA, her name was added to seven more FIRs,” he said. He added that NSA detention is required to be reviewed every three months, but in Aakriti’s case, the detention was ratified for a year at the first review itself.Choudhary alleged that UP Police had also sought to malign his daughter’s image. He claimed that after securing her remand, a Noida police team took her to her residence in Delhi on the night of April 24 and told neighbours she was a criminal with links to Pakistan who was engaged in anti-national activities. “Aakriti would have broken down, but she stood firm and refused to sign the blank papers police wanted her to sign,” he said.He had also challenged the police’s decision to take her to Lucknow to appear before the NSA board without informing him. “It was a 60-hour-long ordeal. She was taken to Lucknow on the night of May 25, after a daylong hearing at Surajpur (Noida) court, presented the next day, and brought back to jail on May 27 after a night-long journey. We were not informed of this movement,” he said.Aakriti’s mother Pinki Devi broke down at the Surajpur court campus on seeing her daughter surrounded by policemen. Her brother, an engineering graduate from NIT Durgapur who works for a construction major in Chennai, also travelled to see her after the family became convinced she would not be released once the year-long NSA detention was approved.“Our family is in the service of the nation. Several people in our close and distant family are in the Army and the CRPF. My daughter has chosen to serve the country by becoming the voice of the poor and the oppressed, and we are happy for the path she has chosen,” Choudhary said.
