Nandini Sundar: List of incidents when Chhattisgarh police has tried to harass me, because of my human rights work and litigation in the Supreme Court.
List of incidents when
Chhattisgarh police has tried to harass me, because of my human rights work and
litigation in the Supreme Court.
1. 2005: During Salwa
Judum, a human rights team of which I was a member was aggressively surrounded
in the camps, not allowed to visit villages freely, stopped at
checkpoints.
2. 2006: Independent Citizen Initiative members were detained in Bhairamgarh police station, mob nearly lynched RG, rumours spread that we had offered 1 lakh to the villagers to help us cross the river to join the Maoists; we escaped only because a local NGO director spoke to the SJ leaders. The Judum took away my camera – it was returned several months later by the Collector, with no apology.
3. 2007: After we filed a case in the Supreme Court, police photo-shopped an image of me with my arms around Maoist women cadres and showed it to visiting journalists and others to show how I was partisan and representing the Maoists. When I protested in writing, the SP Rahul Sharma replied saying it was one “Ms Jeet.” Nothing has ever been heard of this Ms. Jeet before or after and when I asked to see the photo, it “could not be found”.
4. July 2009: Four of us, including two other profs, were detained in Mirtur
CRPF camp and police station till 1 am on the SP’s orders despite giving prior
information to the Collector that we were visiting the area. The Judum and SPOs
took away JP’s mobile phone and charger. It has never been returned.
5. December 2009: A DU colleague and I were asked to leave a Dantewada hotel late at night on the police’s instructions; denied any lodging in Dantewada and Sukma, surrounded by SPOs at night, and followed by SPOs in un-numbered vehicles till we left the district. We had to advance our ticket.
6. July 2010: SRP Kalluri put out a statement, reported widely in the media saying that Arundhati Roy, Medha Patkar and I, among others, were linked to the attack on Congressman Avdhesh Gautam’s house, masterminded by Lingaram Kodopi.
7. October 2010: We were asked by the ASG and Chhattisgarh’s lawyers in the Supreme Court to visit Bastar. Taking their assurance at face value, a journalist friend and I visited. We were picked up from a village which I have been visiting for decades (on the basis of tapped phone conversations) by an SDOP accompanied by 50 armed SPOs. They refused to let us out of their sight for a week, even following us to the airport to make sure we left. (We used the opportunity to visit Salwa Judum camps).
8. 2011-15: I have been stopped at every CRPF camp, checked, sometimes made to wait for hours, even while on my way to attend a wedding. The only reason I was not harassed even more during this period was because I usually went on visits to do with the CBI enquiry ordered by the SC on attacks on village Tadmetla and others. However, during this period the CBI team itself was physically attacked by SPOs, and police personnel in February 2012, and threatened in November 2015.
9. 2013: Media stories were circulated that I was in regular touch with Maoists in Raoghat and was leading demonstrations of the Raoghat Rail Sangharsh Samiti at their behest (even as I was teaching classes in Delhi).
10. 2014: Media stories put about that I had coached villagers what to say before the TP Sharma Commission (investigating the attacks on Tadmetla and Swami Agnivesh), and that I was in direct touch with the Naxalites. Lawyer’s notice for defamation sent to the newspapers.
11. April 2016: My effigy was burnt by the Mahila Ekta Manch, after we filed a fresh application in the SC.
May 2016: Completely false charges made up that ‘JNU profs’ had instigated villagers to join Maoists, threatening to burn their homes if they did not support Maoists. Police staged demonstration of alleged villagers in front of thana demanding that an FIR be registered against us. Media vilification campaign carried through Zee news, Chhattisgarh whatsapp groups, media, and Collector Amit Kataria’s facebook page. All the persons who accompanied us and whom we met have been cross-questioned and intimidated, including the driver of the hired car.
12. For the last ten years, my phones have been tapped, my emails read and so on. Vilification in the court is a constant feature – that we are fronts for the Maoists etc.
2016 is the first time
that I have used a pseudonym (Richa Keshav) – and that too, only verbally to
one policeman who claimed to be making a friendly enquiry. I have always told
the villagers who I am and why I am there, including in this instance. And yet,
this name change is the story that the media choses to highlight, not the years
of persecution. Apart from a few brave Chhattisgarh reporters, the national
media has also not chosen to report it as part of a recent pattern in which
journalists, lawyers, and activists have been arrested, landlords intimidated
into denying housing, and a variety of other vigilante attacks have taken place
at the behest of the police, especially IG SRP Kalluri.
My public stand on the
state-Maoist conflict is well known, where I have consistently criticised
Maoist violence. This is what makes this current charge even more ridiculous –
that we would threaten villagers that their houses would be burnt if they did
not support the Maoists. I am deeply grateful
to all the friends and colleagues who have accompanied me on these trips, and
suffered police intimidation. I have not named them here for obvious reasons.
(From Nandini Sundar's Facebook page)
see also
Report of Fact Finding Team of Editors Guild of India on attacks on media in Bastar (Chhattisgarh)
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