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Cobra's (or call them tigers) Are Back

By subhash gatade

05 December, 2005
Countercurrents.org

“Unless social deprivation is attended to on a war footing, the disaffection engendered by it may continue to fester fuelling never ending spirals of violence”
K.G.Kannabiran's Letter to the then CM Chandrababu after an attempt on his life

The petition (www.petitiononline.com) addressed to the President of India and duly signed by many eminent intellectuals and activists makes chilling reading. Giving details of some recent happenings in AP and requesting the President to intervene it tells us about the 'cruel and inhuman anti insurgency strategy being adopted by the state government.' According to the petition the state police department has engaged a criminal mafia gang called ‘Black Cobra’ . This gang has been issuing ‘death lists’ in media and brutally hacking those on the lists.' And this gang has already killed two intellectuals – Mr. Kanakachari, a teacher by profession, human rights activist and co-convener of Telangana Jana Sabha and, Mr. M. Prasad, a bank employee and District leader of Kula Nirmoolana Poraata Samithi, an organization fighting against caste system - who were brutally hacked to death within a span of two weeks.

It tells us that when a delegation of intellectuals and journalists complained to Lok-Ayukta (an ombudsman-like authority to enforce ethics and accountability in public office), that the state Home Minister and Director General of Police have failed to discharge their duties with respect to the ‘Cobra Killings’, the Cobra gang had started calling up those who were part of that delegation. This is ample proof that the police are hand-in-glove with this criminal gang. And the petition rightly raises the question " rearing ‘vigilante’ criminal groups and using them to bump off detractors is a strategy used by cruel dictators. It is sad that such inhuman ‘strategies’ are being used in one of the most revered democracies in the world."

Looking at the recent developments in A.P. one is reminded of the spate of killings and attacks on civil liberty activists in the wake of the bomb attack on the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu in October 2003. It is clear that after the 'aborted talks' between the Maoists and YSR led state government, the powers that be are getting ready to usher into what is termed as 'zero tolerance' for naxalism and has devised ingenious ways to achieve this.
Close on the heels of the killings have come the news of the attack on the house of Prof S Seshaiah, Head of the Department of Law in Sri Krishnadevaraya University in Anantpur, who happens to be general secretary of APCLC. It has been reported that five unidentified persons attacked the house of Prof Seshaiah on 23 November at 10.30 p.m. and also tried to break open the door of the house. Incidentally Mr Seshaiah happened to be inside the house with his wife, son as well as other family members who boted the house from inside fearing threat to their life. The attackers created terror outside the house for half an hour and then left the place. The next day an unknown outfit 'Rayalseema Tigers' claimed responsibility of the attack and in a letter found outside his house it demanded that Prof Seshaiah resign from the APCLC or get ready to face the consequences. The most disturbing thing was that the local police which was informed of the developments by a wellwisher of Mr Seshaiah did not even bother to reach the place and apprehend the culprits.

May it be case of 'Black Cobra' or for that matter the 'Rayalseema Tigers' one is witness to the sudden emergence of many such outfits during last few months only, especially after the breaking down of talks between the Naxals and the government, who are engaged in targetting people sympathetic to the movement. Their modus operandi is similar, they release list of people affiliated to different civil and democratic rights organisation and ask them to leave the organisation or face consequences. According to a release of the APCLC itslef ,"..[K]ilingarao of Karimnagar district was killed in the name of Naxals Badita Sangam , a new outfit. Again after this another list was released this time by kakatiya cobras. In all this lists all those people whose names were listed were threatened to resign from their organizations as other wise they face dire consequences. There were almost 77 persons named out so far, who belongs to different Human Rights, Civil Rights and democratic organizations."

It would be naive to state that without the goverment's official patronage all these things can happen. It cannot be denied this killing spree by these secret groups has definitely dampned the people's spirits at least for now. People are asking if it can happen to a Professor who has been a backbone of the civil liberty movement for the last twenty years and who a year ago was one of the mediators in facilitating the aborted talks between the Naxals and the Government of Andhra Pradesh then it can happen to anyone.

Definitely the anger of the state machinery vis-a-vis the APCLC is easy to comprehend. It is an open secret that the police engages in encounters at will of innocent persons supposedly to curb the 'menace' of Naxalism. And while the police frequently release the statistics on naxalite violence, they avoid mentioning the victims of their own violence. The Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee (APCLC), the prime human rights body has been keeping track of the police killings and two year back it had listed more than 4,000 deaths, 2,000 of them in the last eight years alone.

It was only two months back that Mr Shivraj Patil, the present home minister had convened a meeting of the home ministers of those states which are suffering from naxalite 'menace' and had talked of 'zero tolerance' to Naxalite violence. One presumes that the different states have started implementing his advice in letter and spirit and Andhra Pradesh is proving to be 'pioneer' in discovering ingenious ways to tackle the 'menace.' But all those people may very well remember the recent admission by the same home minister on the floor of the house wherein he rather conceded the limits of this approach when he admitted that despite best efforts it 'was not able to bring down the level of naxalite activities as successfully as it had tackled terrorism' ( The Hindu, 30 Nov 2005).

Perhaps it is time that instead of bothering oneself in presenting good bytes to the viewer or catchy slogans to the reader , the powers that be get ready to think out of the box for a permanent and lasting solution to the problem which would truly encompass the concerns of the deprived or the dispriviedged and the limits of the 'law and order' mindset.

Subhash Gatade, H 4, PUSA APARTMENTS, ROHINI 15, DELHI 110085 Ph : 011-27872835

 

 

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