Skip to main content

Left-wing fact-finding report indicts cops, Maoists for atrocities on tribals in Chhattisgarh's Naxal-infected region

 A recent fact-finding visit by a Left-wing delegation to the worst Naxalite-infected areas of Bastar division in Chhattisgarh has found that there has been large-scale arrest of villagers, with the law being allegedly used by the cops “as an instrument of torture rather than of justice or peace-keeping”.
Seeking a “high level judicial enquiry on all the encounters, arrests, surrenders, rapes and other atrocities by state-sponsored vigilantes, police, security forces and Naxalites since 2005”, the delegation has taken strong exception to a new form of the armed anti-Maoist organization Salwa Judum, banned by the Supreme Court, cropping up in the region.
Pointing out that the police are “holding Jan Jagran Abhiyans” in the same way as Salwa Judum used to do, the report said, they are “threatening and distributing all kind of goodies to the villages, including cell phones, if they inform on the Maoists.” It added, “This is very similar to the origins of Salwa Judum. In Kumakoleng village, 50 persons were forced to ‘surrender’ in March, and are now living in different police and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) camps.”
The delegation comprised of Sanjay Parate, Chhattisgarh state secretary CPI-M; Vineet Tiwari, Joshi-Adhikari Institute, CPI, New Delhi; Prof Archana Prasad, Jawaharlal Nehru University, associated with the All-India Democratic Women's Association, and Prof Nandini Sundar, Delhi University, visited Bastar Division from May 12 to 16, 2016.
The report said, “The most recent and worrying development we observed was the manner in which villagers in and around the Kanger national park - in Tongpal and Darbha blocks - are being arrested and made to surrender by police, and then threatened and brutally beaten by Maoists.”
Pointing towards how people are caught between atrocities of the police and the Maoists, the report said, “On April 15, the police/CRPF held a Jan Jagran Abhiyan in Kumakoleng. On April 17, the Maoists beat up villagers, including women, for asking for a CRPF camp to come up near their village. Two-thirds of the entire village of Kumakoleng has now fled and is living outside the village for fear of Maoists”.
Similarly, it noted, “In neighbouring Soutnar panchayat, the villagers resolved to keep the Maoists out and have been patrolling the villages with bows, arrows and axes for the last three months.” Yet, it added, “The villagers say the police have refused to set up camp, telling them that the Maoists will go away if they patrol, thus making them vulnerable.”
Claiming that the police “is not interested in any peaceful and honest approach to the problem” the report pointed towards a fake encounter, which took place at Marjum village, in which two innocent youth, Markam Manglu and Podiyam Vijja, were killed, but they were passed off as Maoists by the police. The CPI held a demonstration on May 19 in Dantewada to press for a fair enquiry into the incident and registration of an FIR.
The team also came “across a number of instances of arrests of ordinary villagers, some allegations of rape by police, and one confirmed instance of rape and sexual exploitation by an SPO/sahayakarakshak working in a Border Security Force (BSF) camp, resulting in pregnancy”, the report said, adding, “We also learnt of instances where Maoists had killed people, leading to severe disaffection among people.”
The report said that the whole district is “heavily militarized” with CRPF/BSF/Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) camps every 5 km, and in the villages around the Raoghat mines, every 2 km, saying, this is “in complete violation of the 5th Schedule, Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act and the Forest Rights Act 2006.”
It added, “No gram sabha permission is sought, camps come up at night, and people’s cultivation is taken over, without their rights being settled. There is massive destruction to the environment.”
Pointing out that the whole effort in the region is to build roads “with a view to intensive mining and industrialization, with no concern for people’s welfare or rights”, the report said, there is “almost no implementation" of the rural jobs guarantee scheme, NREGA, "despite this being a drought year.”
---
Click HERE to download report

Comments

TRENDING

Patriot, Link: How Soviet imbroglio post-1968 crucially influenced alternative media platforms

Adatata Narayanan, Aruna Asaf Ali Alternative media, as we know it today in the age of information and communication technology (ICT), didn't exist in the form it does today during or around the time I joined formal journalism at Link Newsweekly as a sub-editor in January 1979. However, Link, and its sister publication Patriot, a daily—both published from Delhi—were known to have provided what could be called an alternative media platform at a time when major Delhi-based dailies were controlled by media barons.

Breaking news? Top Hindu builder ties up with Muslim investor for a huge minority housing society in Ahmedabad

There is a flutter in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur area, derogatorily referred to as the "border" because, on its eastern side, there is a sprawling minority area called Juhapura, where around five lakh Muslims live. The segregation is so stark that virtually no Muslim lives in Vejalpur, populated by around four lakh Hindus, and no Hindu lives in Juhapura.

60 crore in Mahakumbh? It's all hype with an eye on UP polls, asserts keen BJP supporter in Amit Shah's constituency

As the Mahakumbh drew to a close, during my daily walk, I met a veteran BJP supporter—a neighbor with whom we would often share dinner in a group. An amicable person, the first thing he asked me, as he was about to take the lift to his flat, was, "How many people do you think must have participated in the holy dip?" He then stopped by to talk—which we did for a full half-hour, cutting into my walk time.

Morari Bapu echoes misleading figures to support the BJP's anti-conversion agenda

A senior Gujarat activist phoned me today to inform me that the well-known storyteller on Lord Ram, Morari Bapu, has made an "unsubstantiated" and "preposterous" statement in Songadh town, located in the tribal-dominated Tapi district. He claimed that while the Gujarat government wants the Bhagavad Gita to be taught in schools, the "problem is" that 75% of government teachers "are Christians who do not let this happen" and are “involved in religious conversions.”

An untold story? Still elusive: Gujarati language studies on social history of Gujarat's caste and class evolution

This is a follow-up to my earlier blog , where I mentioned that veteran scholar Prof. Ghanshyam Shah has just completed a book for publication on a topic no academic seems to have dealt with—caste and class relations in Gujarat’s social history. He forwarded me a chapter of the book, published as an "Economic & Political Weekly" article last year, which deals with the 2015 Patidar agitation in the context of how this now-powerful caste originated in the Middle Ages and how it has evolved in the post-independence era.

New York-based digital company traces Modi's meteoric rise to global Hindutva ecosystem over several decades

A recent document, released by the Polis Project Inc.—a New York-based digital magazine and hybrid research and journalism organization—even as seeking to highlight the alleged rise of authoritarianism in India, has sought to trace Prime Minister Narendra Modi's meteoric rise since 2014 to the ever-expanding global Hindutva ecosystem over the last several decades.

Caste, class, and Patidar agitation: Veteran academic 'unearths' Gujarat’s social history

Recently, I was talking with a veteran Gujarat-based academic who is the author of several books, including "Social Movements in India: A Review of Literature", "Untouchability in Rural India", "Public Health and Urban Development: The Study of Surat Plague", and "Dalit Identity and Politics", apart from many erudite articles and papers in research and popular journals.

Justifying social divisions? 'Dogs too have caste system like we humans, it's natural'

I have never had any pets, nor am I very comfortable with them. Frankly, I don't know how to play with a pet dog. I just sit quietly whenever I visit someone and see their pet dog trying to lick my feet. While I am told not to worry, I still choose to be a little careful, avoiding touching the pet.

Martyrs’ Day at Sanand: Remembering Vinod Kinariwala amidst politics of remembrance

I was urged by a close relative, considered across my family as a binding force, to attend a grand ceremony on Martyrs' Day, March 23, along with four other relatives. The event, called Veeranjali (homage to martyrs), was to be held in an open space near Sanand town, about 15 kilometers from Ahmedabad. Martyrs' Day has been observed across India since independence, as it was on this day in 1931 that Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, and Rajguru were executed.