Ajay TG: Hauled up for no fault : Combat Law

Combatlaw

For over three months, an innocent film-maker and people’s rights defender Ajay TG is being targeted by Chhattisgarh police and administration to the extent of being virtually robbed of his livelihood since his computer and other belongings have been seized after a police raid at his house on the pretext that these may have “incriminating material” that can help in prosecuting naxal activists. The sordid tale of State vendetta that Ajay TG wrote before his arrest on May 5 this year

It is a short account of the seizure of my property by the police on January 22, 2008 from my residence at Pradeep Nivas, 48 Ayyappa Nagar, Bhilai. Though they (police) have offered no evidence of any kind against me, the police and the courts have still not returned the items taken from my home on that day. Since this includes film equipment and other materials on which I rely for my work, my family and I are effectively deprived of our source of livelihood.

Briefly…, the facts are: On January 22, 2008, I left my Ayyappa Nagar home early in the morning on my way to attend a PUCL meeting in Raipur. Half way there, I happened to phone my wife – (who was) alone in the house with our small son – to find her in a state of considerable distress. A large party of armed police were in the house while others were surrounding the whole area.

They demanded my immediate return. It later transpired that they did not obtain a search warrant and that no woman officer had accompanied the party, though my wife was required to remain in the house with them until my return. The situation seemed so for me as to consider it prudent to inform a couple of lawyers involved in the PUCL movement. Advocates Sudha Bharadwaj and K Bose Thomas insisted that they should accompany me back to Ayyappa Nagar, where we arrived at about 2.30 pm. At that stage the police appeared unable (or were perhaps simply unwilling) to say in what connection this raid had been made. A little later, after the police had been in our house for perhaps five or six hours, we were informed that it was case number 14/08 under the Arms Act. A thorough search of the house was then conducted, causing major disruption, but nothing incriminating was found. The police nevertheless insisted on taking away the computer on which I edit my films and do a lot of my other work, a monitor, my camera manuals and some other film equipment, master copies of many of my films, research notes, a collection of newspaper cuttings, papers and books, and a pile of receipts for small incidental research expenses (for which I am now unable to claim reimbursement since I cannot account for my outgoings).

At that time I was told that these items were being taken for inspection and that I would be able to reclaim them the next day. In the meantime I was interrogated about persons whom I learned to be part of the Naxalite movement – persons with whom I have never had any connection and whose names I had not even heard until then. Nor have the police subsequently been able to produce a shred of evidence that I have ever been in contact with any of them.

After the raid on my house and lengthy interrogation in Supela Thana I returned home. At about 10 pm that night, four policemen appeared at my door and demanded my signature on a document stating that I had willingly given them permission to search my house. I later learned that that morning, before coming to Ayyappa Nagar, a large party of police had raided the house of my elderly parents in Supela Purani Basti, as well as the nearby house of my sister – apparently under the misapprehension that they would find me there. Further, my sister’s husband was taken to Supela Thana where he was kept for six or seven hours without any explanation being offered to him.

Over the two days immediately following the police raid, I was required to spend the whole day at Supela or Chhauni Thanas while CSP Rajness Singh read through all of my emails (about 400 of them) and examined other materials on the hard disk of my computer. For several subsequent days I was required to make myself available at the thana for periods of several hours through which the inspection continued. Nothing incriminating was found. I was nevertheless required to provide 108 specimen signatures in Hindi and a further 108 in English script, as well as a long sample of my handwriting.

I have made repeated requests for the return of my equipment to the police, who initially reassured me continually that I would get it back ‘soon’. Subsequently, however, I was informed that it would only be handed back to me on the order of the court, and that the court could not rule on this until a chargesheet had been drawn up against the defendants in some case with which I have absolutely no connection. This chargesheet has subsequently been made available to me and my lawyer, and what it reveals is that:

I am not an accused in any of the cases it frames Nor am I a witness in any of them Nor, further, am I or any of my seized possessions even mentioned on the chargesheet In the some 650 pages of documentation supplied, there is no reference to the raid on my house or to my seized property, and none of it is shown as such. Its present whereabouts is unknown to me as it is not lodged with the court.

On March 26, 2008 I applied to the court in which charges under case 14/08 are being preferred against others for the return of my property. The Honourable Judge refused this application on the ground that the government lawyer had objected lest some information valuable to the prosecution case be yet obtained from it. Since the police have had access to this material for now more than two months, since it has been already extensively scrutinized by them, and since nothing of the slightest relevance to the chargesheets framed against others has been discovered, it is extremely difficult to understand what justification the state has for retaining it.

In the meantime… my family and I are deprived of means of our livelihood. I naturally feel that a considerable injustice is being done to me — especially since I absolutely have no idea why the police should have raided my house in the first place and I have never been offered an explanation for their actions.

An arrest most foul

I absolutely have no idea why the police should have raided my house in the first place and I have never been offered an explanation

After months of unjustified harassment, a filmmaker, Ajay TG, has been arrested by Chhattisgarh Police even more unjustifiably. Ajay Thachhappully Gangadharan (TG) was arrested from his Bhilai residence on May 5 this year and charged with sedition under Section 124-A of the Indian Penal Code as well as Sections 3, 4 and 8 of the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, 2005. The CSPSA gives state officials the leverage to order arbitrary detention of persons suspected of belonging to an ‘unlawful’ organisation or for giving protection to any member of such an organisation. He was charged with being party to the terrorist network of Naxalites. In an interview, Chhattisgarh police chief Vishwa Ranjan, told a weekly journal that police recovered a letter written by Ajay addressed to the spokesperson of the Maoists saying “either return the camera I gave you or pay me in lieu of that… And under the law, one cannot have any contact or commerce with members of a banned organisation.” After Binayak Sen, Ajay is the second human rights defender to be arrested and further wrongly imprisoned under the CSPSA on unsubstantiated grounds. Casting a critical gaze on the state’s spite for the defenders of human rights, especially the PUCL for being critical of the government’s infamous Salwa Judum policy, it is clear that this arrest is an act of state vendetta. According to Amnesty International, Ajay has been victimised. In the wake of an escalating blood feud between banned Maoists and Salwa Judum in the Bastar-Dantewada corridor of Chhattisgarh, Ajay has been instrumental in the documentation of human rights violations against the Adivasi communities including unlawful killings of adivasis, sexual assault of adivasi women, abductions and forced displacement. Salwa Judum is an armed anti-Maoist militia campaign funded and backed by the state government. Amnesty International calls upon the local and state authorities to ensure “Ajay’s prompt and fair trial in accordance with international standards of fairness and to take concrete measures to ensure that human rights defenders in Chhattisgarh are not subject to harassment or intimidation and enjoy all the rights.” – Aanchal Khurana

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