Court allows narco test of Kobad Ghandy

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A city court on Saturday allowed a narco test on Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) leader Kobad Ghandy.Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Kaveri Baweja allowed the plea of Delhi Police for conducting the narco test on Ghandy. The court’s directions came after a panel of doctors submitted their report stating that Ghandy is medically fit to undergo the test.The court had last week asked a team of doctors from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) to ascertain Ghandy’s health condition.Police had moved the application for conducting the narco-analysis test on Ghandy arguing that they could not extract useful information as he was not cooperating.Ghandy is presently in 14 days’ judicial custody.

‘Stop killing tribals in the name of Maoists’

Manan Kumar

NEW DELHI: A fact-finding team of civil rights groups that recently visited some of the violence-infested villages of Dantewada has come out with certain searching posers which seem reason enough to inquire into the so called state action against the Maoists.

Picking up details of brutal repression by security forces against innocent tribals in villages of Gachanpalli, Gompad, Chintagufa, Mukudtong and Jinitong it asks that if the 17 villagers killed by the security forces in two recent separate encounters were Maoists, then why did the security forces leave the bodies in the villages? And what was the point of brutality that preceded killings?

According to the report of 15 member fact-finding team, seven villagers were brutally killed by the security forces on September 17 in Gachanpalli village.

“Kawasi Ganga, 70, who could barely see was stabbed and murdered in his bed while Madvi Deva, 25, was tied to a tree and shot three times and then beheaded.

Another villager Muchaki Deva, 60, of Onderpara who was grazing cattle was beaten and dragged into the village by security forces and then hung on a branch of a tree and pushed into a pot of hot oil and then pulled out and poured over with water..” the report claimed listing gruesome excesses committed against innocent tribals by the security forces in retaliation to Maoists’ violence against their men.

“Why we are being not told about the details of the Maoists killed in Operation Green Hunt? Why the Government flashes only their numbers. It is a deeply perturbing scenario,” said Sharmila Purkayastha, a member of the team. Express Buz

Theatre of war

You’re free: Kishenji takes the ‘Prisoner of War’ poster off Sub-Inspector Dutta

NAXALISM

Action. Drama. Sentiments. Tension mounts as Maoists and the state gear up for more battles

By Rabi Banerjee

It was an eventful night. Chilling silence followed an armed Maoist’s shout in a part of Dohomina village in Lalgarh. The Maoist, in his mid thirties, asked the 50 journalists gathered there to sit quiet on the mud floor near a school ground.
“Do not shout. Do not click photos unless you are asked to. Just sit on the floor. We will show you something soon,” said a young gun-wielding rebel whose face was masked. His red eyes gleamed with intensity.

Silence prevailed. A life was at stake. The life of a police officer of the Left-ruled West Bengal. Sub-Inspector Atindranath Dutta had been kidnapped on October 19 after Maoists ambushed a police station, an act unheard of in the state.

About 50 guerillas led by a woman squad member had stormed the Sankrail police station in West Midnapore. They split into two groups. One killed the two policemen on duty, looted arms and ammunition and abducted Dutta, who was in his quarters opposite the station, on a motorcycle. The other robbed Rs 10 lakh from a nearby bank.

Govt panel dubs Chhattisgarh industrial push as land grab

A government committee on land reforms has described the industrialisation drive in Chhattisgarh’s iron-ore rich Bastar, Dantewada and Bijapur districts as the “biggest grab of tribal lands after Columbus.” The committee’s observations are based on the move to displace 350,000 tribals from these districts for setting up steel and power plants with a total investment of Rs 20,000 crore.

The committee on State Agrarian Relations and Unfinished Task of Land Reforms said, “This open declared war will go down as the biggest land grab ever… the drama being scripted by Tata Steel and Essar Steel who wanted 7 villages or thereabouts, each to mine the richest lode of iron ore available in India.” They were referring to the clashes between Salwa Judum, a state sponsored anti-naxal movement and the Communist Party of India (Maoist).

The 15-member committee was constituted in January 2008 to examine issues relating to alienation of tribal lands including traditional rights of the forest-dependant tribals and to suggest realistic measures. It said private companies were encouraging Salwa Judum to gain control over these areas.

“The traders, contractors and miners waiting for a successful result of their strategy are behind the Salwa Judum. The first financiers of the Salwa Judum were Tata and Essar in the quest for peace,” it said. The panel said a “civil war like situation” prevailed in these districts.

“Villages sitting on tons of iron ore are effectively de-peopled and available for the highest bidder… Both Essar Steel and Tata Steel are willing to take over the empty landscape and manage the mines,” the committee said in its report. The report was submitted to Rural Development Minister C. P. Joshi, who then referred it to the National Land Reform Council, headed by the Prime Minister. Top News

The mining company and the Indian PM

30 Oct 2009 14:52:17 GMT
Source: ActionAid
Reuters and AlertNet are not responsible for the content of this article or for any external internet sites. The views expressed are the author’s alone.

Bianca Jagger (Founder and Chair of the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation) and tribal leaders of the Kondh people have been joined by 47 internationally respected opinion makers to send an open letter to India’s Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh.

Names include Judge Weeramantry, Former Vice President International Court of Justice, Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, Member of the House of Lords, Chair of Justice and President of SOAS and Julia Häusermann, MBE, Founder and President, Rights and Humanity Organisation.

The letter urges the Indian Government to consider the impact of plans by mining company, Vedanta Resources, to build an open-pit mine on Niyamgiri Mountain, the spiritual and ancestral home of the Kondh tribal people.

Add your name by emailing: BJHRFKondhcampaign