The Supreme Court of India this past week rejected the plea by rights activists Anand Teltumbde and Gautam Navlakha seeking anticipatory bail in the cases against them in relation to the violence at Bhima Koregaon on 1 January 2018. There is still no credible proof against them yet their arrest is now imminent today, part of what is now an established pattern of intimidating intellectuals critical of the Indian government. Other activists and intellectuals—including Varavara Rao, Arun Fereira, Vernon Gonsalves, and Sudha Bharadwaj—also accused in the case and charged with the UAPA are in prison since 2018. These arrests are widely seen as an attempt to repress democratic voices, and crush dissent. With the latest projections estimating that the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic could affect millions of people, prisons are already in the process of releasing thousands of inmates to forestall the spread of the virus. Given this dire situation, and that bail applications were rejected and interim stay on the arrest denied despite the pandemic, there’s serious threat to the lives of the eleven accused, many of whom are over 65 years of age and highly vulnerable to the disease. One of India’s most prominent civil rights activists, Gautam Navlakha hours before his surrender wrote an open letter. The text, lightly edited, is reproduced below.