New Delhi: As several workers and activists remain incarcerated even after four months of the workers’ agitation in Noida, student leaders and activists held a protest at Jantar Mantar, Delhi, on Tuesday (August 11), demanding their release. The protest has renewed public attention to the April demonstrations, where hundreds of peaceful protesters, merely asking for fair wages, were arrested by the police.The Tuesday protest was organised by Campaign for the Release of Workers and Activists of Noida (CaRWAN), an ad-hoc human rights advocacy and solidarity group, with protesters ranging from students, activists, workers and artists to family members of those still in jail.According to a report by The Hindu, protesters highlighted the alleged contradictions and inconsistencies in police reports regarding the timeline of events and raised placards denouncing the “illegal and baseless” police action.“It has been four months since eight activists have been in jail. The UP police have registered at least 11 FIRs against each of them and invoked provisions of the National Security Act against Akriti Choudhary and Satyam Verma. However, the police have not presented any concrete evidence so far in court,” Keshav Anand told The Hindu. Keshav, who is a member of CaRWAN, is the brother of Aditya Anand, who has been named as the prime accused for “inciting violence” during the workers’ protest.Keshav also noted that key details such as location and dates were different in the chargesheets and the remand sheets submitted before the magistrate in several cases like Akriti Chaudhary, Srishti Gupta, Manisha Chauhan and Rupesh Roy. “In one chargesheet, Akriti’s phone is said to have been found in her bag at a location near the Noida Phase 2 police station on April 26. Another chargesheet stated that the last known location of her phone was the Botanical Garden metro station from where she was arrested on April 11 at 7.04 p.m. How could she have placed her phone at a different location while being in police custody?,” he said. Family members of those arrested have also alleged harassment, with police searching their homes without warrants, hounding them for identity proofs and interrogating their relatives and friends.Naureen Sabba, a friend of Srishti, told The Hindu, “On April 18, the police came to our PG room and interrogated me. They even asked the PG owner to throw us out, calling us ‘terrorists’. We have filed multiple complaints with various authorities, including the National Commission for Women, highlighting these illegalities but haven’t got any response.”The arrests stem from a series of protests organised in Noida industrial area in April over wage hike, working hours and better overtime compensation. Violence reportedly erupted in one such protest, leading to a widespread campaign of state crackdown. Several individuals were taken into custody and charged under NSA, which permits incarceration for up to a year without trial. The Wire has published a series of reports detailing how hundreds of factory workers across nearly 80 sites in Noida gathered outside factories on April 13 to protest unjust working conditions.