Volume 6, No. 11, December. 2005

 

Extracts from the Open Letter from Chhattisgarh PUCL on 'Saalva Judum'

 

According to these reports (Jansatta, NDTV, and local CPI district president) people are being compelled to join the "Saalva Judum" rallies by brute force, and the homes of those refusing to do so are being burnt and their crops destroyed. Youth are particularly being terrorize into consent, and any young person refusing to join the "Saalva Judum" rallies is being assumed to be a Naxalite supporter, and being terrorized and tortured accordingly.

According to an independent report, even unmarried young women are being forced to wear ‘Sindoor’ in order to lay pretence to a male protector. There was a heart rending story of an Aanganwadi worker, named Soniya, who was beaten up by the Jawans of the Naga battalions, tied up with ropes at the ankle, dragged in this condition to the police station and forced to spend the night in the lock-up along with men, all on the suspicion that she was a Naxalite supporter. Similar story of excesses committed on women by police, CRPF and Naga forces have been recounted by NGO activists from Dantewada.

According to one estimate more than twelve thousand villagers, participants in the "Saalva Judum" campaign, have been displaced form their villages and lodged in police protected camps in the name of security. Conditions in these camps are sub human, one family is given one tent to live in. Sleeping arrangements are only on wet ground protected only by a rubber sheet. There is no adequate arrangement of drinking water, no lighting, no health facility, and food is provided by the police department. There have been several outbreaks of diarrhea, and several children have succumbed to these.

There are reports that indicate that any one who is suspected of being a supporter of Naxalites or a Sangam member is brutally tortured, beaten and in many cases killed. Through a combination of a carrot and stick approach, many people are being prodded into playing the role of informers for the police departments. In this way there are indications that normal democratic and civil rights have ceased to exist in the Bijapur and Bhairamgarh, Nilashnaar, Kotrapally and Gangalur area.

Several villages in the area where "Saalva Judum" is going on are reported to have become devoid of male members, who have either run away or being forced into the camps. The meagre seasonal agriculture of the adivasis is being severely compromised in this way, and with the break down of economic life, life and livelihood seems to be seriously threatened.

 

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