On March 28, 2025, Sanal Edamaruku — a renowned rationalist, secularist, and fearless critic of religious dogma — was detained at Warsaw Modlin Airport under an Interpol Red Notice initiated by India. He was in Poland to speak at a human rights conference. The Red Notice is based on an alleged fraud case originally filed in India. The case is currently under appeal in Finland, where Sanal holds permanent residency and has lived in exile for over a decade. The matter is already under Finnish jurisdiction and legal scrutiny.

Sanal’s detention is deeply concerning as it follows years of transnational persecution since he was forced to flee in 2012 after exposing the true cause of a so-called “miracle” — a “weeping” statue in Mumbai — which turned out to be faulty plumbing. He was charged with blasphemy, faced death threats and public vilification.

This current move to extradite him now appears to be a continuation of that campaign, particularly given that Poland itself has a record of arresting artists and activists for “offending religious feelings.” Now it is aiding a transnational effort to punish secular voices — the very voices that refuse to bow to authoritarianism in priestly robes. 

India was founded on the promise of secularism, but it is far from a safe haven for secularists and rationalists today given the rise of the Hindu-Right. In recent years, multiple prominent rationalists — including Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare, M. M. Kalburgi, and Gauri Lankesh — have been assassinated for challenging religious superstition and political extremism. If Sanal is returned to India, he faces not only legal persecution but a very real threat to his life.

Sanal himself once said of his murdered friend Narendra Dabholkar: “They killed him because they were afraid of him. Because he made people think. That’s what they fear the most — thinking.”