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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Maoists, govt targeting activists: Rights body-Rakhi Chakrabarty

Maoists, govt targeting activists: Rights body-Rakhi Chakrabarty

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published Published on Jul 31, 2012   modified Modified on Jul 31, 2012
-The Times of India

A report released by the Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Monday said activists are threatened and attacked both by "Indian authorities and Maoist insurgents, who undermine basic freedoms and interfere with delivery of aid in embattled areas of central and eastern India". 

In its 60-page report — Between Two Sets of Guns: Attacks on Civil Society Activists in India's Maoist Conflict — the rights body documented cases of abuse and torture of activists, some of whom like Dr Binayak Sen, Lingaram Kodopi and Himanshu Kumar of Vanvasi Chetna Andolan are well known. 

"The Maoists and government forces seem to have one thing in common: a willingness to target civil society activists who report rights abuses against local communities," said Meenakshi Ganguly, south Asia director of HRW. 

The report is based on more than 60 interviews with locals, activists, journalists, and lawyers, who witnessed or are familiar with abuse by security forces and Maoists in Odisha, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh between July, 2011, and April, 2012. 

Activists who travel for work to remote areas where they come across Maoists and "work out practical arrangements" with the rebels, the report said. Activists also routinely engage with various government officials to ensure development. 

"Both sides though respond by accusing activists of acting as informers or being secret members of the other side," said Ganguly. 

While asking Maoists not to use civilians as shields, the HRW said, "The movement's ideology is propagated through village meetings, community groups, and theater performances. Indoctrination is done through public meetings, speeches, and in schools." 

Besides women, Maoists recruit children for combat, the report said. "Their tactics include abduction and killing police and government officials, attacks on schools and hospitals, extortion, torture and killing of suspected informers or "class enemies," and demand for food and shelter from local communities," it added. 

Maoist operations are largely funded through extortion and unofficial "tax" collections in areas under their control, the report pointed out. 

Documenting abuse by government, the report cites the case of Pratima Das, a young lawyer-activist with Odisha's Nari Mukti Morcha, who was in jail for two-and-a-half years for "supporting Maoists". Das was arrested in August, 2008, while she was accompanying David Pugh, a US environmental activist to Kalinga Nagar in Odisha to observe a "people's protest". Pugh was let off after questioning, but Das was arrested. 

Das told HRW that the police did not know her identity, but assumed she was a Maoist. The police made her "write something on a paper, and said my handwriting matched that of a Maoist leader". 

The police personnel searched her house and forced her brother to sign on a blank paper. "Later, I found out they (police) had already told the media that a big Maoist leader was arrested and that they had recovered Maoist literature from me," Das said, adding, "They (police) even asked, "We know you are not involved in action. But why do you work on Maoist issues?" 

Das was acquitted on November 17, 2010 after trial. 

The report documents the case of CPI member Kartam Joga, a petitioner in the PIL challenging the Chhattisgarh government's support for Salwa Judum. Soon after, Chhattisgarh Police described Joga and his co-petitioners as Maoist supporters. 

Joga was arrested on September 14, 2010, and accused of involvement in several bomb attacks and murders, including the killing of 75 CRPF personnel on April, 2010, in south Chhattisgarh's Tadmetla. The charges are still pending against him. 

"The Indian government needs to step in and bring an end to politically motivated prosecutions," added Ganguly.

The Times of India, 31 July, 2012, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Maoists-govt-targeting-activists-Rights-body/articleshow/15285160.cms


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