About the Human Rights Defender: Mr. Ashish Sagar Dixit (40) is an environmental activist, RTI activist and freelance journalist from Banda District, Uttar Pradesh. He is a founder of the Press Trust of Bundelkhand news portal and was the Digital Editor of Voice of Bundelkhand.

Details of the incident: On January 05, 2022, two policemen came to Mr. Ashish Sagar Dixit’s home at Vijli Khera, Banda. They showed a list to Mr. Dixit on their mobile and said that his name is in the history sheeter’s list. They also said, “we cannot give you the paper or more information, you should take information from the SP or via an RTI”. On January 6, 2022, Mr. Dixit sent an RTI application and sought information regarding him being mentioned on the history-sheet. In response, on January 09, 2022, the Civil Line Police Station Kotwali, through the Forest Department office, replied stating, “The history sheeter against the applicant has been opened on 23 November 2021 under the procedure as per 95A rules. The register is a confidential record. The copy of which is not possible to be given. The following cases are registered against the applicant.

1. Case number 637118 section 147/452/504/352/427 of IPC at Thana Kotwali, Banda
2. Case Number 633/18 section 63 of IT act at Thana Kotwali, Banda
3. Case Number 187/18 sections 147, 323, 504, 427, 353 and 336 of IPC at Thana Kotwali, Banda
4. Case Number 78/21 section 504, 507 of IPC at Thana, Janpura, Banda
5. Case Number 56/16 section 376 D, 452, 504, 506 of IPC and B (1) 12 of SC/ST act at Thana Naisi, Banda
6. Case number 279/20 section 200 of IPC and section 66 Of IT act at Thana Hameerpur, District Hameerpur. According to the malpractice register rules against the applicant, The history-sheeter procedure has been done by the Superintendent of Police according to procedure of the history-sheeter rules to control/monitoring to these following activities-maintaining- the family with the money earned through brokerage in the work of the people, hiding from the police and taking money from the general public in the name of the police, is its main profession, and harassing the public, mistreating civilized persons and tarnishing the image of other people etc.” On January 09, 2022, another notice was sent to Mr. Dixit by the city magistrate, Banda based on the report of the inspector incharge of the Kotwali police station, Banda. According to this, he is a person of criminal nature. Thus, the sub-city magistrate of Banda ordered him to be present in the district court on February 08, 2022, and tell the court why he should not submit 50000 rupees as a surety bond or two ‘bail bonds’ of same amount. On February 08, 2022, another notice was given to him by the office of the district magistrate of Banda, regarding his Facebook post. On February 07, 2022, Mr. Dixit had written a Facebook post saying that the current district magistrate of Banda had lodged an FIR on journalist Pawan Jaiswal earlier, for a news report on mid-day meals of salt with roti to school children. Now he is being targeted, named as a history-sheeter and given notices under goonda acts. On February 12, 2022, Mr. Dixit replied to district magistrate’s notice about his Facebook post stating that he was being harassed extensively with fabricated charges and apologised if his post hurt district magistrate’s image which was not his intention. On February 15, 2022, he wrote a letter to Superintendent of Police, Banda, saying that his name in the history-sheet should be removed because the cases against him were fabricated and politically motivated in nature because of his work as a journalist. He received no reply to his letter.