Status of the Human Rights Defender: Pooja Shukla is a student activist and leader, having raised several issues for social justice in campus as a student of Lucknow University. She was criminalised and jailed for 26 days last year for waving black flags at Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, to protest 60% fee hike at Lucknow University. Due to her involvement in the protest, she is being denied admission to the masters course at Lucknow University and results of her entrance test were withheld, prompting her to sit on hunger strike.[1] She is a member of Samajwadi Party Chhatra Sabha and part of Student Alliance for Democratic Rights (SADR), an outfit formed by students in Uttar Pradesh to voice their dissent against the facist nature of the central and state governments Incident detail: As per news reports, on July 28, 2018, student leader Pooja Shukla was dragged into a van and kidnapped by 8-9 police men and one woman constable, when she came out of her friend's flat in Ismailganj to go to Sheroes caf_ in Gomtinagar, Lucknow. Her phone and bag were also snatched, and she was slapped for resisting to hand over her phone and showered with profanities. This incident preceded the arrival of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the city. Pooja Shukla was taken to an undisclosed location, where more women constables joined them, and was illegally detained all day and finally released only after 9 p.m. pursuant to news coming in that the Prime Minister had left. As per her own testimony on social media, she has alleged that she was manhandled by the police, intimidated and threatened that she will be killed in an ecounter. Her pleas to allow her to talk to her family and friends were consistently refused during the entire period of her detention. She also claims that her phone calls were answered by the police, who mislead her family members, friends and acquaintances of her whereabouts. It is only when she insisted on going to the washroom that she was taken to Fun Mall, where she borrowed the phone of another woman in the washroom and managed to make a call to a friend and request that her parents be notified that she has been illegally detained and kidnapped by the police. However she was caught by the police constable who snatched the phone and abused her and took her back to the jeep, where she was taken once again to an undisclosed location and made to stand there. All the while she was under detention, she was threatened with physical harm and injury and threated that she would be put behind bars for a long time and pessurised to leave politics. Her health was affected due to the torture meted on her. It has been reported that upon being contacted by the media, ASP (trans-Gomti) Harendra Kumar said that police force was deployed to keep surveillance on some leaders, but denied that anyone was detained. However, Inspector Mahila Thana, Sharda Chaudhary, said that some women constables were sent to apprehend a girl student leader but she was not aware of the name and profile.[3] Pooja Shukla has also informed that search operations and raids were carried out by police from Sarojini Nagar and Vibhuti Khand police station at both her parent's and sister's home on July 28, 2018 and July 29, 2018 to perpetuate fear and intimidate her family members. It is not far to seek that the aforesaid acts of the police were meant to terrorize and intimidate human rights defender, Pooja Shukla and to quell any voices of opposition and dissent against the ruling dispensation. These acts are clearly unconstitutional, patently illegal, constitute grave human rights violations and are against the democratic fabric and ethos of the country, and need to be thorougly investigated and dealt with strictly.