Scroll.in / By Aarefa Johari
Mumbai political activist Arun Ferreira says that his spirit hasn’t been broken. At 42, he’s studying to become a criminal lawyer so that he can work with political prisoners.
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The Wire / By Varsha Torgalkar
The five activists who have been arrested are to be held in police custody for seven days even as questions arise over a letter containing all the details of several plots that allegedly ties them to the banned CPI (Maoist) group.
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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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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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