Who is Sanal Edamaruku arrested in Poland after Interpol Red Notice over blasphemy case?

Indian activist, Sanal Edamaruku who has been living in Finland since 2012, has been arrested in Poland while travelling to a human rights conference.

Sanal who has been living in exile, was arrested over an Interpol notice by Indian authorities as he is wanted in a blasphemy case.

According to an organisation founded by the activist - Rationalist International - he was detained at the Warsaw Modlin Airport.

Who is Sanal Edamaruku?

Born on May 26, 1955, in Kerala's Thodupuzha, Sanal grew up becoming a rationalist - atheist activist. He is an Indian author, activist and founder-president of Rationalist International.

He served as the General Secretary of Indian Rationalist Association (IRA) in 1983 and later also became its president in 2005.

Sanal is also the editor of Modern Freethinker and has written many books and articles about rationalistic thoughts and superstitions in India.

Once, while appearing on a TV show in 2008, Sanal had challenged a tantrik's powers by asking him to kill him using only magic.

Sanal had in March 2012 probed a report that water dripping from a crucifix at the Our Lady of Velankanni Church in Mumbai was due to a sewage leak and not a miracle.

Along with an engineer, he went to the site and found that water was seeping due to a faulty plumbing and that the water dripping wasn't a miracle.

Later during a TV show which was held to discuss the probe, Sanal accused Christian priests of scamming and defrauding people to make money to build bigger and newer churches.

A Catholic lawyer had asked Sanal to apologise for his remarks which he refused to do so.

As a result, the Catholic Secular Forum in April 2012 filed an FIR under Section 295(A) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

The activist later moved to Finland on July 31, 2012, in a self-imposed exile. The Indian authorities had issued an Interpol Red Notice for Sanal in 2020 which led to his arrest on April 8, 2025.