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June 17, 2010
We strongly condemn the detention and subsequent arrest of Nisha Biswas,
Manik Mandal and Kanishka Choudhury, activists from Kolkata who were
visiting Lalgarh to investigate the rampant human rights violation by the
police and paramilitary forces in those areas. The three activists, along
with three print and electronic media journalists, had been visiting the
Salboni-Lalgarh area since 14th June, documenting the atrocities and
destruction wreaked by the joint state and central forces and the armed
CPI(M) harmads who are backed by these same police forces. On 15th June,
all the six persons were detained by the joint forces from Lakshmanpur
village in Salboni. Along with them around fifty villagers were also
rounded up. Although the journalists were subsequently released, the three
activists were charged, together with seven villagers who are activists of
the Peoples’ Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA), with violation of
Sec. 144 of the Criminal penal code, which has been in force in Lalgarh for
the past one year. We learn with great concern that when they were produced
in Midnapore court on 16th June, they were charged with multiple false
cases under various sections including waging war against the state,
criminal conspiracy and unlawful assembly, as a result of which they were
denied bail and remanded to 14 days jail custody, although the original
charge of violating Sec. 144 is a bailable one. We unequivocally condemn
this blatantly illegal act of human rights violation by the police and
demand the immediate release of the three persons.
This act by the police is also a marker of the situation in Lalgarh one
year after the entry of the joint forces into the area. For the past one
year, Sec. 144 has been in force in Lalgarh, which is unprecedented in the
history of independent India. Members of civil society have not been
allowed to enter Lalgarh during this time and repeated attempts have
resulted in detentions and arrest by the police. Lalgarh has become out of
bounds for citizens of India, in complete violation of the fundamental
right to the freedom of movement throughout the territory of India
enshrined in the Constitution. In this situation, the area has seen
unprecedented human rights violation by the state forces in the form of
killings, rapes, beatings, looting of household goods, indiscriminate
arrests and charging with false cases. Together with this has been the
rampage by the CPI(M) harmads, who have reenterd the area in the wake of
the security forces. In this backdrop the normal economic and social life
has completely broken down in the entire region. We note with profound
concern that the behaviour of the CRPF and other state forces have been
like that of a foreign occupying force, possibly worse, and provides a
taste of what Operation Green Hunt is doing to the adivasis over the entire
central Indian region. We think that the latest arrests of the activists is
the continuation of the intimidatory tactics by the government to break the
resolve of civil society to stand beside the struggle of the adivasis of
Lalgarh for dignity and justice, and demand their immediate release and the
withdrawal of the joint forces from the region.
Sanhati
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