Ratan Lal

Academic and Activist 

Delhi 

Professor Ratan Lal is an Associate professor of History at the Hindu College in Delhi University. He is also an Dalit activist and the founder of Ambedkarnama, a news portal focusing on Dalit issues.

In May 2022, Prof. Lal made a Facebook post on his Facebook wall, which referred to claims of a Shivling been found at the Gyanvapi mosque. On May 20, 2022, he was called to the police station for questioning and at 10.30 pm on the same day, the Delhi police arrested Prof. Lal charging him under sections 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony) and 295A (deliberate act to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion) of the Indian Penal Code. 

We believe that the Delhi police cyber cell is abusing its authority and harassing Prof. Lal for exercising his constitutionally guaranteed right to freedom of expression. We believe that the charges against him are false and the FIR should be immediately quashed. 

We urged the Hon’ble Commission to direct the Commissioner of Police, Delhi to immediately drop all charges against Professor Ratan Lal and order its investigation wing to conduct an immediate, independent, thorough, transparent, effective and impartial investigation into his arrest.