Condemning four hours of "illegal detention and house search" of People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) National Council and Chhattisgarh Unit Office Bearer Kaladas Dehariya, even as demanding dropping of "fabricated and false" proceedings under the anti-terror law UAPA immediately, PUCL has said that the security agency NIA's conduct was "shocking", as during the operation, the "neighbours' houses were locked."
Its statement regrets, "The NIA showed their disregard for the law and constitutional protections by not disclosing the reasons why they were searching his house, not permitting his lawyers to meet him, not showing the search warrant and not providing the hash value of the electronic items."
Text:
The PUCL National and Chhattisgarh State branch strongly condemns the early morning raid today, 25th July, 2024, by the NIA of the house of Kaladas Dehariya, popular cultural activist, respected trade unionist, a PUCL national council member and Vice-President of PUCL Chhattisgarh state unit in Bhilai. The NIA showed their disregard for the law and constitutional protections by not disclosing the reasons why they were searching his house, not permitting his lawyers to meet him, not showing the search warrant and not providing the hash value of the electronic items. After 4 hours of searching his modest house, the NIA left with his phone, a long dead laptop, and a pen drive which had a collection of pamphlets used for different programs.
The way the NIA conducted the search is totally illegal as the NIA and other police officials did not follow any of the prescribed procedures during search operations. The raid was also actuated by malice – not only to drive fear in the minds and hearts of Kaladas, his family and associates but also to intimidate and drive fear amongst other rights defenders, trade unionists and social activists,
It is important to know the manner by which the raid was conducted. Early in the morning of 25th July, 2024, at about 530 am, Kaladas Bhai, and his wife, Neera, were woken by loud banging on their doors. When they opened them, they found a large police force outside, of 15-16 people, who had come in 4 vans. A few of them were from the Durg district police (as Bhilai comes under this district).
The rest identified themselves as coming from NIA Ranchi. They didn't inform Kaladas Bhai of which particular case they were investigating but told him right in the beginning that they had 'information' that he is engaged in "Bharat virodhi gatividhiyan" (anti-national activities). The police then engaged in a thorough search of the entire house, rifling through the entire Shankar Niyogi book collection, shaking down the mattresses, unfolding all of Neera behan's sarees, scouring all the various posters and banners collected over various protest programs. Kaladas Bhai owns 5 pen drives, 4 of which are full of folk songs and one has a collection of various pamphlets and announcements picked up from various programs, which was seized. The NIA also picked up Kaladas Bhai's phone after removing the SIM card, and also a non-working laptop used by Kaladas Dehariya's daughter, who is a student in media studies at Wardha and had last used it for her assignments when it was functioning.
As if Kaladas Bhai would run away or people would attack the police, in the four hours that the raid happened, several police officers were stationed outside in their narrow street, preventing and prohibiting any resident of the locality from stepping into the street. They even locked some doors from the outside, rebuked people from opening their windows and even stopped people from stepping out to fill drinking water which is only available for limited time in the morning at the municipal taps. The police even stopped a lawyer from the neighbourhood from visiting Kaladas bhai to ensure that the raid was being conducted as per law.
Even a complaint to SP Durg did not help, as he stoutly defended the NIA team, saying that lawyers are not allowed during raids and interrogation, which is a direct violation of the criminal code and several SC directives.
The Supreme Court in Nandini Satpathy v. P.L. Dani (1978) unequivocally held “Lawyer’s presence is a constitutional claim in some cases”. Furthermore, it held that the police may permit the advocate of the accused to be present at the time of interrogation. The Court believed that right against self-incrimination (Article 20(3)) and the right to consult a lawyer (Article 22(1)), would be furthered if the advocate were allowed to be present during the examination. This has been reiterated in the DK Basu guidelines and in the Selvi v. State of Karnataka (2010).
The PUCL is extremely outraged that the NIA gave no hash values or agreed to make clone copies of the electronic devices which they seized from Kaladas bhai. The PUCL is of the opinion that this entire search and seizure is illegal.
Why target Kaladas Dehariya?
Kaladasji, as he is popularly called, is a resident of the labour camp Jamul, (adjoining the ACC plant), in Bhilai. Chhattisgarh. He is a PUCL national council member and a Vice President of PUCL Chhattisgarh. An extremely versatile personality, he is well known for his cultural activism, and commitment to constitutional values and defense of the constitutional order. The platform Relaa, put together by him has travelled all over the country, singing resistance songs, doing street theatre expressing people’s sufferings and their dreams. Since the 90s he has been associated with the trade union movement and with the Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha (Mazdoor Karyakarta Samiti). strictly adhering to the ideology of struggle and constructive work, when working with the poor, as laid down by the renowned thinker and trade-unionist Shanker Guha Niyogi. He Is also a national coordinator of NAPM, and associated with Chhattisgarh Bachao Andolan and the Jan Sangharsh Morcha, an alliance of many organisations to save natural resources and the people.
For the PUCL it has once again become clear that this attack of the Indian State on a renowned cultural, trade union and human rights activist, like Kaladas Bhai, has only one purpose: to criminalise everyday activism and cause a larger chilling effect, by causing intimidation of the workers, so that they don’t struggle even for a decent wage. It is also well known that that Kaladas bhai had been a part of the larger protest against the proposed tree felling of the pristine forest of Hansdeo Aranya, by corporate interests, so he had sent off yet another memorandum to the state government, signed by scores of people. He had also been organising people and written to the Government several times against the implementation of the four labour codes.
He along with others had also taken up the issue of indiscriminate extra judicial killings in the villagers in Bastar, apart from the ongoing struggle with the cement wage board in ACC. It is thus clear that Kaladas was a threat to both the Chhattisgarh state Government as also the Government of India, as an important dissenter against corporate projects which threatens environmental and livelihood security of Adivasis, workers’ rights to fair wages and good standard of life and violations of constitutional values.
PUCL demands that
- the NIA explain, how it is investigating the above case, when the FIR is only under u/s 10 & 13 of the UAPA, which relates to unlawful activities and not terror activity?
- the NIA does not drag him any further in the investigation of the above UAPA case.
- return the electronic devices seized from him and scrupulously follow the rule of law and the constitutional order.
- stop criminalisng everyday activism and dissent against Government Policy of struggling people.
-- All India office bearers: Kavita Srivastava, President; V Suresh, General Secretary; Chhattisgarh office bearers: Degree Prasad Chauhan, President; Ashish Beck, General Secretary, PUCL
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