One of Gujarat’s most visible human rights lawyers and activists, Mukul Sinha, passed way in Ahmedabad yesterday aged 63 due to lung cancer.

Sinha was particularly well known for fighting against the Gujarat government for victims of the 2002 Gujarat riots and fake encounters and was very well-known and visible on social media and in the mainstream media, reported NDTV.

The physicist-turned-advocate ran the NGO Jan Sangharsh Manch, which specialised in labour laws, reported Firstpost.

Senior advocate Indira Jaising told Mint that Sinha “was committed throughout his working life to democracy and justice and the rule of law. There are so few in the active practice of law who are committed to those issues, most believing that it is fine to represent anyone who offers the money”.

Scroll has a detailed reflection on Sinha during his life time:

After the 2002 pogrom, Sinha became known as a human rights lawyer and a Gujarat riot activist. Neither term sat well with him and he always saw himself, and his work, through the lens of a labour organiser. “What both 1992 and 2002 did was to fool people into believing that the communal divide is greater than the class divide,” Sinha said. “As soon as you convince a society that Muslims or whatever group is the problem, you have tricked them into overlooking the real problems like labour laws, corruption, housing shortages, and poor infrastructure.”