RS Mugilan. Over three months since his disappearance, the state and legal institutions largely remain silent. RS Mugilan, an environmental activist from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, went missing on 15 February 2018 after he organised a press conference regarding the killing of 15 protestors at a demonstration in Thoothukudi against the UK-based mining corporation Vedanta in May last year.At the press conference, Mugilan released a 46-minute documentary, Koluthiyathu Yaar? Maraikkapatta Unmaigal (Who lit the fire? The Hidden Truths). The documentary alleged that the police, in collusion with the Vedanta’s copper-producing subsidiary, Sterlite Copper, disrupted the protests. After the screening, Mugilan demanded that police officers involved in the shooting be arrested and held accountable. He specifically named high ranking officers, including the then Inspector General of Police, Shailesh Kumar Yadav, and Deputy Inspector General of Police, Kapil Kumar Saratkar, as being complicit in orchestrating the police firing. It…

---