Prof Gilani backs ‘political prisoners’

Statesman News Service

BHUBANESWAR, June 25: Mr S A R Gilani while addressing a convention organised to form a regional chapter of a platform to take up the cause of ‘political prisoners’ said that the growing tendency to crush resistance movements by arresting them needs to be checked.

“From Nandigram in West Bengal, Kalinga Nagar and Kashipur in Orissa to J&K and the North East, oppression seems to be the strategy to crush people who are demanding basic rights. Those who protest against land accusation and loss of livelihood are being labelled as ultras, he rued.” Gilani who was jailed for two years following the 2001 attack on Parliament, alleged that minorities were being targeted as a follow up to any blast that takes place anywhere in the country.

There should be a law categorising political prisoners, as India is a party and all such prisoners should be released unconditionally, he demanded. Explaining why he wanted all political prisoners to be released unconditionally, Mr Gilani said none of them would get a fair trial. There are innumerable instances including the one relating to Binayak Sen, he alleged. Political prisoners are treated in the most inhuman manner, charge sheets are not filed and all kinds of sections are made out against them, he remarked. Debunking the ‘internal security threat’ version often given by the police , he said there is absolutely no such threat. “What kind of a democracy is this, is it democratic to arrest people who struggle to protect their land and safeguard their livelihood,” he asked. The root cause of socio-economic unrest that leads people to take to arms is never addressed. Instead of resolving the socio-economic problems of people, the attitude is to arrest the people and overcome the immediate problem.
Gilani informed that a joint platform had been formed at the national level to take up cause of political prisoners and he was out here to set up regional chapters.

The forum will fight for proper rights to such prisoners and it will extend legal aid to them.
There are at last 15,000 such political prisoners languishing in jails across the country while in Orissa there are 300 such prisoners, said rights and social activists who had gathered at the convention here today. Several activists from Koraput, Ganjam and Kalahandi delivered speeches.

Leaders of various movements like Mr Bansidhar Das, Mr Santosh Mohapatra, Mr Lingaraj Azad and Mr Prafulla Samantra cited instances of how innocent tribals and poor people were arrested under false charges in the state. Significantly several ‘victims’ including tribals had come to attend the convention.

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