The Wire / By Javed Iqbal
Activists opposed to displacement and mining in Gadchiroli speak about the new wave of state repression, adivasi culture, their own struggles with higher education, government policies and people’s movements.
(Conversation with Sainu Gotta, Lalsu Nogoti, Mahesh Raut)
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KAFILA / By Vidhya A
In a statement issued on April 16 2018, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) claimed that the ‘National Policy and Action Plan’ to combat Left Wing Extremism (LWE) is ‘a multi-pronged strategy involving security and development related measures’[1]. This new policy, apparently in place since the NDA government came to power at the centre, claims to have ‘zero tolerance towards violence coupled with a big push to developmental activities so that benefits of development reached the poor and vulnerable in the affected areas’.
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First published: June 17, 2017
Countercurrents / By Neema Pathak Broome and Mahesh Raut
The world environment day came and went one more time on the 5th of June, many passionate statements were made about the environment and need for tree plantation drives. Many tree plantation drives were carried out across the country. Even as these celebrations and plantations were being carried out, thousands of local communities across the country were risking their lives to resist destruction of trees that already exist in some of the country’s finest forests.
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First published: May 3, 2009
Boloji / By Shoma Sen
Deep in the forests of Gadchiroli, a tribal area of eastern Maharashtra, live the Gond ‘adivasis’ (tribals), some of the poorest and most neglected people of the state. The region is considered dangerous because large parts of it have come under the sway of Maoist rebels, also known as Naxalites, who have taken up the challenge of organizing the Gonds to fight for a society they claim is based on justice and equality. The ensuing conflict between the rebels and the state has turned the region into a “police state”, where anti-insurgency security forces are constantly on the vigil, storming Maoist hide-outs and eliminating suspects. The word ‘encounter’ – a euphemism for such extra-judicial killings – has become a part of local vocabulary.
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Coordination of Democratic Rights Organisations (CDRO) / by Coordination of Democratic Rights Organisations (CDRO), Indian Association Peoples’ Lawyers (IAPL), Women against Sexual Violence and State Repression (WSS)
Introduction / 4
Chapter 1: The Background and Context: Minerals, Mines and Militarization / 5
Forest Rights, PESA and Gram Sabhas
The Violence Needed to Violate
The Costs of Mining: Interrogation, Arrests, Torture and an Economic Blockade
Chapter 2: Execution and Cover up of a Massacre / 14
Tumirgunda Forests (Boria Kasanur) on 22nd April 2018
Nainer Forests (Rajaram Khandla) on 23rd April 2018
A Story with Holes: 15 Bodies found on 24th April 2018
Celebration, Rewards, Promotions: Prize for Killings
Grim Silence on Gattepalli
Chapter 3: Encountering Resistance / 28
Koindwarshi
Mohandi
Gudanjur
Rekanar
Chapter 4: Conclusions / 37
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Sanhati / By CDRO, IAPL, WSS
In the morning of 22nd April 2018, an alleged encounter took place in Boriya-Kasnasur of Bhamragarh tehsil of Gadchiroli district, Maharashtra. A fact finding team comprising of 44 persons from across 12 states belonging to three major human rights networks and organisations – Co-ordination of Democratic Rights Organisations (CDRO), Indian Association People’s Lawyers (IAPL) and Women against Sexual Violence and State Repression (WSS) visited the sites of the alleged encounters in the district of Gadchiroli. Their findings show that while the term encounter is being used for all of these instances, they are in fact fake.
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Women against Sexual Violence and State Repression (WSS) / By WSS
Women against Sexual Violence and State Repression (WSS) condemn the recent spate of genocidal violence unleashed by the Indian State on the adivasis of Central India in the form of ‘encounter’ killings in Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra and Bijapur district of Chhattisgarh. … Reports coming out of area reveal heartbreaking accounts of how villagers including children gathered for a marriage function were rounded up and killed without provocation by the security forces.
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Counterview / By Sudha Bharadwaj
There would be little doubt in the mind of even the most cursory observer of contemporary events in Chhattisgarh, that the most burning issue agitating the peasantry and adivasis there today, is displacement on an unprecedented scale – for mining, setting up of industries, dams, sanctuaries, four laning of highways, the posh capital region, and even army and air bases.
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India Environmental Portal / By Janhit Peoples’ Legal Resource Centre (Sudha Bharadwaj a.o.)
In the entire mineral rich region of Orissa, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, where even non-Naxal areas (Posco, Kathikund, Kalinganagar, Narayanpatna, Potka) are seeing brutal police repression, mining seems to be the motivating factor for a ground clearing of the adivasis – if necessary by war, as in Dantewada. However, the present note does not seek to document the above in any detail, but only deals with a very specific aspect of the above process, namely the legal framework in which it is sought to be legitimized, and some of the serious issues that the “legal face” of this land grab raises.
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CJP / by Teesta Setlavad
Youth from oppressed sections of society languishing in jail due to inordinate delays.
After several preliminary hearings, the Jharkand HC has admitted the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by the Persecuted Prisoners Solidarity Committee [PPSC] on under-trial prisoners in the jails of Jharkhand. Several thousands of them, mostly Adivasi and Dalit youth, who have been languishing in prison because their trials have been deliberately prolonged. If speedy trial had been held most of them would have been be acquitted by now, the petition alleges.
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