---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: cpiml shankar <cpiml.shan...@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Aug 8, 2011 at 1:02 AM
Subject: Fwd: Petition: Release Comrade Afroz Alam, Withdraw ‘Gangster Act’
and other false cases
To: "cpiml.karnataka" <cpiml.karnat...@gmail.com>





 *Release Comrade Afroz Alam, Withdraw ‘Gangster Act’ and other false cases*


**

http://www.petitiononline.com/rlzafroz/petition.html]


**

**

*In the police-mafia regime of Mayawati-ruled UP, ‘Gangster Act’ and
custodial torture is the reward for struggling for the landless poor.
*

*
*

On the face of it, Mayawati’s government appears to be at loggerheads with
the Congress in UP. But when it comes to the nexus with the land mafia in
Pilibhit, the UP police and local Congress leaders have united to falsely
frame and torture a young CPI(ML) activist.

Afroz Alam, member of the CPI(ML)’s state standing committee and National
Executive member of the All India Kisan Mahasabha (AIKM) and seven other
CPI(ML) activists who have been leading a struggle in the workers’
settlement of Rahul Nagar for land titles, were called by the police station
in Pilibhit on 2 July, on the pretext of talks. They were then arrested and
serious false charges were filed against them – including arson (Section
436), and SC/ST Act. They were badly beaten and subjected to brutal torture
using ‘rollers’ on their thighs. Eventually when the matter came to District
Sessions Court and the Court questioned the police’s conduct, ‘Gangster Act’
was invoked against Afroz and the others, ensuring that the hearing for that
case will now take place in the ‘Gangster Court’, Bareilly.

Comrade Afroz is 34 years old, from a working class, Leftist family of Rae
Bareilly. A left activist from his student days, he joined AISA and the
CPI(ML) in the 1990s. After completing his M.Com from Lucknow University, he
became a full-time communist organizer, working in Bareilly, Moradabad and
then Pilibhit. He is now a National Executive member of the All India Kisan
Mahasabha (AIKM).

In Pilibhit, he has led struggles of agricultural labourers against the
eviction of settlements of the rural poor in the name of afforestation and
the Tiger Project. He has organized struggles for redistribution of
thousands of acres of land, that had been illegally grabbed by land mafia,
among agricultural labourers and poor peasants.

In 2010, he organised a popular struggle against the attempts by land mafia
and poachers led by Congress leader B M Singh to evict the residents of
Rahul Nagar Mazdoor Basti in Pilibhit, and turn it into a farm house. Around
350 families now residing in this colony (which had been created as a result
of a decades-old struggle led by CPI(ML)) are struggling for land title
rights. The local police and administration has been cooperating with the
land grab attempts by Congress leaders and the land-forest mafia all along.
As a result of the struggle, B M Singh was jailed, but in a vindictive
action, the police and administration had jailed Comrade Afroz too.

After his release from jail, Comrade Afroz organised a successful hartal
(strike) by agricultural labourers under the banner of the All India
Agricultural Labourers’ Association (AIALA) demanding the redistribution of
1850 acres of village community land that had been grabbed by the land mafia
in Bhara Pachpeda. As a result of the strike, the administration had been
forced to have the land vacated. In the zila panchayat elections, the
CPI(ML) candidate won as a result of the political assertion of the
agricultural labourers.

On 15 August last year, a dalit youth Rampal was arrested for an inter-caste
love affair and beaten to death in custody in Barkheda thana. The CPI(ML) in
Comrade Afroz’s leadership had spearheaded a struggle that resulted in the
guilty police personnel being jailed. In particular, this incident has made
the local police most vindictive towards Comrade Afroz and the CPI(ML).

When Mayawati visited the Trans Sharda area, which has a substantial dalit
presence, she failed to announce any measures to protect the people from
flooding of the Sharda river. Comrade Afroz had launched a struggle to
demand the construction of a dam and distribution of land grabbed by the
land mafia among those affected by the ‘katan.’ A hunger strike was to be
started on these demands on 15 July. In order to thwart this struggle,
revenge themselves for the jailing of police personnel in the Rampal case,
and serve the interests of the land mafia, Comrade Afroz and other CPI(ML)
activists have been arrested on false charges and tortured.

During the hearing in the District Sessions Court on 3 August, the Court
asked the police why Afroz and the others had been tortured, and asked the
police to respond within 2 days. Sensing the possibility that the Court
might order their release, the police filed ‘Gangster Act’ on all the 8
CPI(ML) activists the very same evening. Now the Gangster Act case will have
to be heard in the ‘Gangster Court’, Bareilly.

 In UP, as in the whole country, people’s movements are facing severe
repression. While corporate houses and mafia-criminal forces are grabbing
land, minerals and other resources, leading to huge corruption, activists
and movements that challenge this loot and defend the rights of the poor,
are being arrested, jailed and tortured. Several protests in Pilibhit as
well as a dharna in Lucknow have been held to demand the release of Comrade
Afroz and other activists. On 9 August, the CPI(ML) has called for a
country-wide Jail Bharo against corruption, price rise and repression. In
Pilibhit, the main issue of the Jail Bharo will be the demand to release
Comrade Afroz and the other CPI(ML) comrades.

We appeal to you to sign the following petition to the Chief Justice,
Allahabad High Court, acquainting him with the facts and appealing for his
intervention to secure the release of Comrade Afroz and the other CPI(ML)
activists, and the withdrawal of the fabricated cases against them.

http://www.petitiononline.com/rlzafroz/petition.html

-- 
Sanjay Sharma
09868430040



-- 
Shankar

www.cpiml.org
lokyudh.com
cpiml-karnataka.blogspot.com
cpimltn.blogspot.com
cpiml-kerala.blogspot.com
cpimlliberation.wordpress.com
cpiml-lib.blogspot.com

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