Harassment And Intimidation Of Rights Delgation In Bastar: Sitaram Yechury's Letter To Chattisgarh CM

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Harassment And Intimidation Of Rights Delgation In Bastar:
Sitaram Yechury's Letter To Chattisgarh CM

By Sitaram Yechury

02 May, 2016
Countercurrents.org

Shri Raman Singh
Chief Minister
Government of Chattisgarh
Raipur

Dear Sir,

I wish to draw your attention to a serious matter and seek your
intervention.

A delegation comprising of Sanjay Parate, Secretary, Chattisgarh State
Committee and member of the Central Committee of the CPI(M), Vineet Tiwari,
a CPI member belonging to Joshi-Adhikari Institute, New Delhi, Archana
Prasad, Prof. JNU and member of All India Democratic Women's Association and
Nandini Sundar, Prof. DU visited Bastar division from 12th 16th May 2016. I
need not to remind you that we as a registered and recognized national
political party have both constitutional and legal right to visit any part
of the country which includes the state of Chattisgarh to interact with the
people in order to understand their problems and also to organise them to
raise their demands. This delegation visited Nama Kamakoleng and some other
villages where people are living through the conflict between the state and
Maoists. People complained of harassment both by Police and Maoists and told
about their problems and miseries.

However, the local police later on produced a fake complaint in the name of
villagers claiming that the delegation instigated the villagers and asked
them to support the Maoists. So much so that the district collector of
Bastar Mr. Amit Kataria posted the so-called complaint of villagers on his
Facebook page without verification. What worries me more than this
irresponsible behaviour of Bastar DC is that the police organised rallies
with Samajik Ekta type vigilantes in front of Darbha Thana demanding that an
FIR be registered against the delegation members. The police have also been
cross questioning all those who interacted with the delegation members
including the driver of the hired vehicle in order to intimidate them. This
amounts to curbing and suppressing opposition political parties and their
legitimate political activities by falsely alleging and labeling them as
being supportive of the Maoists. Such falsehood cannot be accepted in a
democracy like ours.

I am aware of the fact that such intimidating tactics are also being used by
Bastar police and administration against journalists, researchers, lawyers
and others to prevent them from visiting Bastar and reporting about
violation of human and constitutional rights of the people.

The CPI(M) has been working and contesting elections in Chattisgarh for
quite a long time. This kind of harassment never occurred. Intimidating
political opponents will not help to solve the Maoist problem. What needs to
be done is the political isolation of Maoists for which the full play of
democracy is an essential pre-requisite.

Therefore all political parties must be allowed to conduct their legitimate
political activities in the Bastar region without any fear and journalists
must be allowed to report truthfully the ground realities.

Can I hope that you will instruct the Bastar police and administration not
to harass and falsely implicate activists of opposition parties, journalists
and others.