In possibly the first instance of its kind in the country, the Andhra Pradesh government has decided to compensate 70 victims of police violence following the May 2007 Mecca Masjid blast. The men had been falsely implicated in the case and tortured in custody. The 20 men who were the worst affected would get Rs 3 lakh each, the rest Rs 20,000 each. The announcement of the Rs 70 lakh compensation was...
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What the EXPLOSIVE Kandhamal tribunal report says by Vicky Nanjappa
A report of the National People's Tribunal on the 2008 riots in Kandhamal, Orissa, is out. The report that runs into 197 pages points out that the brutality of the violence falls within the definition of 'torture' under international law, particularly the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. According to the tribunal, headed by Justice A P Shah, communal forces used religious conversions as an issue for political mobilisation...
More »Court anguished at Soni Sori's medical report
-The Hindu A report submitted by a Kolkata hospital, which examined tribal teacher Soni Sori, who was allegedly tortured by the Chhattisgarh police, has said two stones were found in her private parts and rectum. Anguished at the report, a Bench of Justices Altamas Kabir and S.S. Nijjar of the Supreme Court on Friday sought the Chhattisgarh government's response. It also directed the State government to shift her to the Raipur jail...
More »Claims, counter-claims on Kishenji killing by Ananya Dutta & Shiv Sahay Singh
Varavara Rao says it was a fake encounter; CRPF terms it an ‘absolutely clean operation' A day after Communist Party of India (Maoist) Polit Bureau member Koteshwara Rao alias Kishenji was gunned down by the joint security forces in the Burisole forest in Paschim Medinipur district, Maoist sympathisers and security forces on Friday traded allegations and came out with counter-claims on whether he was killed in a “fake encounter.” While revolutionary poet...
More »Truth and Justice: Buried in the Ground
-EPW With laws like the AFSPA, when will truth and justice prevail in Jammu and Kashmir? Like all Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) chief ministers after the dreadful years of president’s rule from 1990 to 1996, Omar Abdullah too stands discredited, especially in the wake of the 2010 uprising of the “stone pelters” which was later brutally suppressed. A widely held opinion in the Kashmir Valley is that the chief minister, whether of...
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