N.Z. Ananda Marga man may face subversion trial
_ <N.Z.P.A.-*eut«*—CopyrtpMl £ , NEW DELHI, January 16. A young Australian and a Briton, formerly a resident of New Zealand, detained in India for almost four months, may be tried on charges of engaging in subversive activities, diplomatic officials have said.
British and Australian High Commission ■spokesmen yesterday identified the detainees as an Australian, Andre Colbert, aged 22, and Richard White, aged 24, m ho is married to a New Zealander.
The spokesmen said that both were trainee monies in the Ananda Marga, a religious group banned last year as extremist and subversive.
They were arrested in Cap cutta on September 28 after their organisation was banned. Both were sentenced by a magistrate on December 12 to two months imprisonment for assaulting policemen and attempting to escape from custody.
The sentence was back dated to September and has now been completed, but both men are still behind bars under the Defence of India Rules that allow the Government to hold them for up to two years without charges.
High Commission officials said the two men. held in the Presidency Gaol in Calcutta. were in good health physically and mentally. They wear long hair and beards and prison dress, though the police claim that when they were arrested they were dressed in the orange robes of the Ananda Marga sect. SABOTAGE ALLEGED
The Indian Government has accused the Ananda Marga ("path of bliss”) and
12 associated organisations banned along with it of sabotage ana assassination. Its founder, PraWhat Ranjan Arkar, also known as Anandamurti, is now on trial for conspiracy to murder some of his former followers.
British and Australian officials visited Colbert and White several times in prison and provided them with fruit and books.
Another foreigner held with them in the prison as an Ananda Margi was named by British officials as Salvan Manikan, of Singapore. They had no other details about him.
A spokesman said that the Australian Government had been kept informed on both Colbert’s legal position and the situation regarding the Ananda Marga in India. One of the vows converts take when they enter the sect as a monk is that they will sever all ties with their families. The Anandamurti trial in the Bihar state capital of
Patna has attracted international attention. He has been on a “1000-day” hunger strike in prison claiming that the charges against him are fabricated.
A British Queen’s Counsel, Mr William Wells, is helping the defence, and his case has also been taken up by the International Commission of Jurists. The sect has also been blamed for the assassination of former Railways Minister (Mr L. N. Mishra) and for a grenade attack on the Chief Justice (Mr A. N. Ray) in which he was unhurt.
Charges have been laid only in the Chief Justice incident. Two Americans were released from gaol in Calcutta late last year after being held for two years for alleged espionage. An English schoolteacher, Mary Tyler, aged 32, was released a few weeks earlier after five years imprisonment in Bihar awaiting trial as an alleged pro-China Naxalite terrorist.
N.Z. Ananda Marga man may face subversion trial
Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34053, 17 January 1976, Page 2
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