A Roster of Crimes Against Chhattisgarh State and DGP Vishwaranjan

Cases of Dr. Binayak Sen and Mr. T.G.Ajay: Terrorizing Human Rights Defenders / Development Activists?

1. Why is the State Afraid of the Good Doctor?
Question: Why does the State NOT specify charges against Dr.Binayak Sen NOR produce any evidence regarding his actions and yet keep him in jail for 534 days?

The chargesheet against Dr. Sen under CSPSA intentionally uses “vague” terms such as “sedition,” “waging war against the state” and “abetting unlawful activities.” He is charged with helping an illegal organization as a member by participating in it OR as a non-member by funding OR receiving funds OR by “hatching a conspiracy.” Dates, time or places of these “activities” are often not specified. This allows police to endlessly drag the trial by producing long list of witnesses without specifying their relevance.

2. Dr. Sen, Can We Presume?
Question: On what basis has the police determined that Dr. Sen is a “doctor in name only”?

The chargesheet against Dr.Sen says that he “is certainly a doctor: but is a big zero in terms of actual practice of medicine.” Does a gold medal from CMC Vellore, the 2004 Paul Harrison Award, Global Health Council’s Jonathan Mann Award 2008, and founding Shaheed Hospital in Chhattisgarh not matter?

3. No Evidence? Doesn’ Matter, Plant Some
Question: Why did the police try to fabricate evidence against Dr. Sen?

Even though the seizure memo in Dr. Sen’s case lists 10 items obtained from his premises signed by the Investigating Officer (IO), Dr. Sen and witnesses, the sealed bag of evidence opened in court had 11 objects, the extra one bearing only the signatures of the IO and prosecution witness.

4. Now, who is a threat to who?

Question: Can you explain why there is a consistent attempt to harass Dr.Ilina Sen (Binayak Sen’s wife and co-activist) -neither an accused nor a witness- both in and outside the court room?

On July 2nd, 2008, during the trial, the public prosecutor tried to implicate Dr. Ilina Sen by asking leading questions to a witness asking him to “identify” Ilina in court. On another occasion, the same prosecutor publicly threatened to falsely implicate Ilina by boasting that “if the defence wished they could make the wife of the accused an accused in the present case at anytime.”

5.No Chargesheet, But Imprisoned; Released, But Not Free
Question: Why was Mr. T.G. Ajay, an independent film maker jailed for 93 days under CSPSA, and with no chargesheet produced by the police at the end? Why is Ajay’s case not yet withdrawn?
Question: Why were police personnel threatening the women and children of the slum where Ajay’s school, Drksakshi operates despite all odds on issues of malnutrition, illiteracy and livelihood?

6. Entrapment?
Question: Why was Ajay being pressurized to sign a letter falsely implicating Binayak Sen and the PUCL as a condition for his release?

Despite efforts to try and frame him, Ajay had to be released on statutory bail. The police could not find any evidence of his wrong-doing. Yet, as shockingly revealed by PUCL legal team, Ajay was also being forced by the police to sign a statement against PUCL, Binayak and Ilina Sen as a condition for his release.

Salwa Judum:  Democracy Chhattisgarh-Style, State Impunity For State Violence Against Citizens?


1.When Report after Report Documents State Sponsored Violence…Can The Emperor Have Any Clothes?
Question: Will the DGP (as the senior most police officer in the State) be liable for murder? Since the State and its police dept. gives logistic and monetary support to Salwa Judum, shouldn’t they be considered accomplices?

In September 2008, a Bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan, and Justices P Sathasivam and J M Panchal after perusing the National Human Rights Commission report on violence in Chhattisgarh said, “The allegation is that the state is arming private persons. You can deploy as many police personnel or armed forces to tackle the menace. But, if private persons, so armed by the state government, kill other persons, then the state is also liable to be prosecuted as abettor of the murder.” Chief Justice Balakrishnan added “It is very painful to read the report. It says there is arson and looting, people are armed and they [Salwa Judum] are committing serious offences. It says people who are subjected to serious problems are still afraid of coming out.”

Question: What kind of police force has more than 85% of its officers commit crimes that got them “discharged”?

In a recent interview in Pioneer, the DGP admitted that 3,250 Special Police Officers (SPOs, the official title for Salwa Judum employees) were “discharged on various grounds of indiscipline.”  The DGP has also claimed (to HRW) that there are 3800 SPOs altogether (the SP Dantewada claimed 3500). If this is the admission of the top police officer, then is it difficult to see why SPOs murder, rape, & forcibly displace?

Question: Will the DGP now include the Supreme Court justices in his list of “Maoist sympathizers” who are demoralizing the Indian state?

The DGP is fond of calling anyone who condemns the Salwa Judum as “maoist sympathizer”. This list includes so far Shankar Guha Niyogi–labour leader founder of India’s largest mass organization, the Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha; sociologist Nandini Sundar, historian Ramachandra Guha, author Arundhati Roy, journalist Shubhranshu Choudhary, human rights groups such as PUCL, Gandhians such as Kanak Tiwari, Himanshu Kumar and Sandeep Pandey, the entire Planning Commission Experts Committee–in short he includes anyone who dares to dissent in his terrorized state.

2. How to Make a Terrorist? A State Primer
Question: Why does the Chhattisgarh police arm children under 18 years? Does the DGP know that “Conscripting or enlisting children under the age of fifteen years into armed forces or groups or using them to participate actively in hostilities” constitutes a war crime under the “Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, 1998″?

“The police asked me also to become an SPO [special police officer] but I refused because I did not want to become an SPO and commit heinous crimes. I did not want to shoot and kill people. … They do not ask anyone how old they are. Even 14-year-olds can become SPOs if the police want them to become SPOs.”
– Poosam Kanya (pseudonym), former resident of Errabore camp, December 2007 (Human Rights Watch)

3.Deny First Information Reports (FIRs), Claim no Evidence= No Atrocities
Question: Why are FIRs not filed for cases when victims have requested that they be filed?

On 18th March 2008, three tribals in Matwada Salwa Judum camp in Bijapur district were brutally killed by the Salwa Judum/police. On August 11th, 2008, Salwa Judum/police killed 5 people at the Arlampalli village. The police refused to file any FIRs in both cases despite constant requests by Himanshu Kumar of the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram. On March 31, 2007 the Salwa Judum/police killed six or more aboriginals in Santoshpur/Ponjer, a fact that was testified later by the “team leader of SPOs” to a journalist.

4. Meritocracy in the Bureaucracy: Murder, Rape, Torture as Credentials

Question: Why has no action been taken against former SP Kalluri for his crimes?
S.R.P. Kalluri, (Former) SP,Balrampur has been implicated in Custodial rape of Ledha Bai and murder of her husband, Police beatings in Ambikapur,  Lathicharge of Rozgar Adhikar Yatra (March for Right to Employment), custodial torture, fake encounters and Intimidation of Lawyers. Kalluri has been promoted and made DIG, Anti-naxal operations, in the capital city of Raipur.

5. Who is in charge in Chhattisgarh?
Question: Why does the Chhattisgarh government harass NGOs by speaking in two voices?

In August 2007, Chhattisgarh state tried to ban NGOs, including Medicine Sans Borders (MSF or Doctors without Borders). Why did a local DC (Dantewada) and SP (Bijapur) claim that NGO’s (and MSF) are assisting Maoists, whilst the State government in Raipur expressed full cooperation with MSF? Why did the media rush to declare MSF as banned, leading to harassment of MSF personnel by Salwa Judum?

Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act (CSPSA) is a new version of extraordinary laws such as POTA and TADA that bypass many routine forms of due process through a broad definition of an unlawful activity and acceptance of vague and unreliable evidence, all in the name of national security.

Salwa Judum: State sponsored militia set up in 2005 ostensibly to counter Maoist-led violence in mineral rich districts of Chhattisgarh, home to a large population of aboriginal groups now the predatory target of Indian and foreign multinational corporations. Many human rights groups and independent citizen’s groups such as Asian Center for Human Rights, International Association of People’s Lawyers, People’s Union of Civil Liberties/People’s Union for Democratic Rights/Association for the Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR) West Bengal, and Indian Association of People’s Lawyers (IAPL), Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Indian National Human rights Commission have documented the details of how Salwa Judum has been responsible for killing, looting, rapes and forced eviction of people from their homes to camps with inhuman conditions.


DGP Vishwaranjan: Highest ranking police officer in Chhattisgarh, consistent apologist for CSPSA, Salwa Judum

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September 27, 2008 | Filed Under Protests, articles | Leave a Comment 

Sreelatha Menon: A homecoming in Bastar

Business Standard, July 20, 2008
EAR TO THE GROUND
Sreelatha Menon

The collector of Dantewada has agreed to give 10 quintals of paddy seed to restart farming in Nendra. Nendra is a village in Konta block in Dantewada district in Chhattisgarh which has been lying deserted for the last three years after multiple attacks by the government-backed anti-Naxal militia, the Salwa Judum, and the police. The collector’s gesture was in reciprocation of a rehabilitation effort by an NGO called Vanvasi Chetna Ashram to facilitate homecoming for the villagers who were living either in jungles fearing reprisals from the Salwa Judum and the police, or in neighbouring villages of Andhra Pradesh. Some of them are in camps set up by the state government.

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July 20, 2008 | Filed Under Press Reports, articles | Leave a Comment 

Justice travestied

by Sandeep Pandey
(The Statesman, July 8, 2008)

I first met Dr Binayak Sen, his wife Ilina and their two daughters, Aparajita and Pranhita, at the conclusion of the ‘Pokhran to Sarnath Global Peace March’ on 6 August 1999 at the Central Tibetan Institute of Higher Learning in Sarnath, near Varanasi. Sarnath is where Buddha delivered a sermon to his first five disciples after attaining enlightenment at Bodh Gaya. The peace march was symbolically between a place of destruction ~ Pokhran ~ and a place of peace ~ Sarnath. It began exactly a year after the day India tested nuclear weapons in 1998 and concluded on Hiroshima Day. The objective of the march was to push for total global nuclear disarmament.

While the march was in progress for 88 days and over 1,500 km, the Sens were busy organising activities in Raipur, now in Chhattisgarh, and their work area in its support. We also later got a chance to work together for the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace, a national platform.

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July 9, 2008 | Filed Under articles | Leave a Comment 

Dr Binayak Sen as I know him: Dr Sandeep Pandey

Dr Sandeep Pandey

I first met Binayak, wife Ilina and their two daughters Aparajita and Pranhita at the conclusion of Pokaran to Sarnath ‘Global Peace March’ on 6th August, 1999 at the Central Tibetan Institute of Higher Learning in Sarnath, near Varanasi . Sarnath is the place where Gautam Buddha delivered sermon to his first five disciples after attaining enlightenment at Bodh Gaya. The peace march was symbolically between the place of destruction - Pokaran, to the place of peace - Sarnath. It began exactly a year after on the day when India tested the nuclear weapons in 1998 and concluded on the Hiroshima Day. The objective of the peace march was total global nuclear disarmament. Ilina had also brought with her drawings made by some children on the theme of nuclear disarmament. While the march was in progress for 88 days and 1500 kms, the Sen family was busy organizing activities in Raipur and their work area in its support. We also later got a chance to work together for the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP), a national level platform of organizations and individuals committed towards nuclear disarmament.

Dr. Binayak Sen is currently in Raipur jail. He has been targeted under the draconian Chattisgarh Special Public Security Act, 2005, and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 2004, to silence the voices of humanity and justice. He is charged with sedition and conspiracy to wage war against the state, among other things. His trail has begun after a year in jail and his bail has been refused even by the Supreme Court. The six prosecution witnesses, out of a total of 89, who have been presented in court so far have failed to stand the cross examination. There doesn’t seem to be an iota of evidence against him. Yet, he is being illegally detained so that nobody dare question the experiment of Salwa Judum in Chattisgarh which legitimizes extra-constitutional violence and pits adivasis against adivasis. Binayak, who is the Chattisgarh General Secretary of nationally the most well known human rights organization, People’s Union for Civil Liberties, which was founded by none other than Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan, exposed the killing of three teachers and one student, all innocent, in Gopapalli, Dist. Dantewada on 4th November, 2004, which was being projected as an encounter by the police. In November 2005 Binayak organized an all India team of human rights activists to visit Dantewada and study the systematic decimation, rape, loot, arson of ordinary adivasis and their properties by the police and Special Police Officers in the name of Salwa Judum. Binayak also objected to the brutal oppression by police of adivasis who were opposing the take over of their lands in Bastar for setting up a Tata-Essar industry. How could the Chattisgarh government tolerate Binayak who was out to expose what they claim as their successful experiment of countering the Naxalites through a ’self motivated people’s movement,’ the Salwa Judum?

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June 19, 2008 | Filed Under statements | Leave a Comment 

SHUT UP THE VOICES OF DISSENT

The Telegraph
OPED
By detaining Binayak Sen for months, is the State sending out an ominous signal to those who work for human rights? asks Rajashri Dasgupta

t is a ploy undertaken by the State, time and again, to browbeat dissent and distract attention from its own misdeeds. Since May 14 last year, Binayak Sen, a pediatrician who has quietly dedicated his life to the service of some of India’s most impoverished communities, especially indigenous tribes and mine-workers, has been languishing in Raipur Central Jail in Chattisgarh under trumped-up charges. For his devoting more than three decades of selfless service to the rural poor, the State has charged the 58-year-old doctor with sedition and conspiracy to wage war, for being a “dangerous Naxalite” and for helping the Maoist movement — charges that could fetch him life imprisonment.

Although the State seems to find Binayak Sen so dangerous as to keep him in solitary confinement, denying him bail and basic amenities, the rest of the world does not. Ironically, even a year ago, only a few knew about his exceptional work, but in trying to stifle his spirit, the State has made him famous, and turned him into a hero. After his imprisonment, Sen has won the 2008 Jonathan Mann Award for Global Health and Human Rights, becoming the first South Asian to receive this prestigious award. The appeal by 22 Nobel laureates to the prime minister to allow Sen to travel to Washington to collect the award on May 29 left the State unmoved.

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June 10, 2008 | Filed Under Press Reports, articles | Leave a Comment 

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