The Pune police carried out raids in seven cities on Tuesday and arrested five human rights activists and lawyers in relation with the Bhima Koregaon violence and an alleged plot to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Twitter users have now raised their voice against these arrests, saying that the law can't forcibly silence the voices of dissent in a healthy democracy.
While a few media houses are branding these activists as Maoists, some users on social media are calling them 'Urban Naxals.' The term was first coined by filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri, who has written a book with the name- Urban Naxals: The making of Budha in a traffic jam.
On Tuesday, the filmmaker and author took to Twitter and said he wanted to create a list of all those people who had been defending 'urban Naxals' or the activists whose houses were raided and who have been arrested.
"I want some bright young people to make a list of all those who are defending #UrbanNaxals Let's see where it leads. If you want to volunteer with commitment, pl DM me. @squintneon would you like to take the lead?" Agnihotri tweeted.
Since then, the director has been facing a backlash on Twitter with people coming in support of the arrested rights activists and saying that if voicing one's opinion against the wrongdoings of the system is being an urban Naxal, then they were ready to be called as urban Naxal.
The hashtag #MeTooUrbanNaxal is trending on social media with supporters of the activists taking a dig at the system, the government and of course, Agnihotri.
Alt News founder Pratik Sinha said that people should come together and raise their voices against being called Urban Naxals if they stood up for the marginalised sections of the society. "Tons of people are already using #MeTooUrbanNaxal on Twitter and Facebook. Let us destroy this new fascist wet dream of branding those who stand up for the underprivileged and marginalised sections of the society as Urban Naxals," Sinha tweeted.
Many users are also calling the arrests as a threat to the democracy and the state of affairs as an undeclared emergency. "Our nation is currently under an undeclared emergency. While the mob lynchers and criminals walk free people who stand for the good are being jailed. And they came up with a new name "Urban Naxals". Then #MeTooUrbanNaxal," tweeted one user.
Here's how the Twitterati is reacting to the hashtag:
