Amnesty International and several other groups, including People's Union for Civil Liberties, said that the arrests of the activists was a concerted attempt to silence voices of dissent and crush human rights interventions. The police arrested five noted activists, including Varvara Rao, Arun Pereira, Gautam Navlakha, Varnan Gonsalves and Sudha Bhardwaj, for their alleged Maoist links.