CPDR-TN Press Statement: Activists arrested under Chattisgarh Special Public Safety Act
CPDR-TN understands that a fact finding team (FFT) comprising Adv. Ravindra Balla, Adv. Prabhakar, activists Durga Prasad and Lakshmayya, journalists Ravindra Prasad and Prabhakar Rao, Naseem a student from Osmania University have been arrested and sent to judicial custody charged under Chattisgarh Special Public Safety Act.
CPDR-TN condemns in no uncertain terms the detention of FFT by the Chattisgarh state police in collaboration with the Telengana state police. The act of Telengana state police to arrest the team at Dummagudem of Bhadrachalam district and handing over to the Chattisgarh state police, Kunta police station exposes the malicious intention of the police authorities.
There was no need for the Telengana state police to detain the Fact Finding Team when they have not committed any offence. Even if detained for any offence committed, there was no need to hand over the team to the state police of the adjacent state. This exposes clearly the interstate police collaboration against the civil rights activists.
The false claim in the sessions court at Sukma that the Civil rights activists were picked in Kunta in Chattisgarh with Maoist documents makes a mockery of the judicial system. If the fact finding team comprising of Advocates of Telengana High Court face such ignominy in the hands of Chattisgarh/
Telengana state police and the judiciary in Chattisgarh treats the Advocates who are court officers with such contempt, any one can imagine the state of affairs of constitutionally enshrined rights of common citizens and adivasis.
Civil rights activists have been in the forefront in exposing the violation of democratic rights in the ongoing green hunt operation carried out against the adivasi population and thus the Maoists by the Chattisgarh state.
Earlier Binayak Sen was falsely implicated under Chattisgarh Public Safety Act and was released after intervention by the Supreme Court. Similarly in the past, even the local journalists exposing the atrocities of the joint forces of paramilitary and state police led by DGP Kalluri, have been arrested and foisted with false charges as in the case of Prabhat Singh.
Failure of BJP’s Raman Singh government to resolve the land issues of adivasis, its pro corporate development leading to grand-scale displacement of adivasis and suppression of adivasi resistance by private armies of Salwa Judum has been source for Maoist resurgence.
By not fulfilling the democratic aspirations of the people and with use of force to curb their resistance Chattisgarh government has failed in upholding the democratic responsibilities of the state.
In such circumstances, the very act of curbing the movement of civil rights activists the Chattisgarh police has been allowed to run amok by the political heads led by Raman Singh government.
CPDR-TN demands unconditional release of the activists by withdrawing the false cases foisted upon them.
S.Gopal,
General Secretary,
Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights -Tamil Nadu ( CPDR-TN )December 29, 2016
Source : http://sanhati.com/articles/18211/
