Soumittra S Bose,TNN | Jul 4, 2015, 03.34 AM IST
“Systemic violence has been stepped up by the state. Violence by any group is the manifestation of the aggression imbibed in the system itself.Unless the systemic violence is ended, no violence can stop. I want to put a stop to that violence,“ said Saibaba. Missing his classroom and students, he said a majority of the jail inmates are Dalits, Muslims and OBCs, common men slapped with trivial offences. There are only a few gangsters and negligible numbers from upper castes. “Many tribal people are being thrown behind bars after being labelled as Naxals. Those people are languishing behind bars without trial or respect for their rights,“ said Saibaba.
Saibaba, who claimed to be missing his classroom and students, said that the majority of the inmates in jail are Dalit, Muslims and other backward classes, common men slapped with trivial offences. There are only a few gangsters and negligible numbers from upper castes. “Many tribal people are being thrown behind bars after being labelled as Naxals. Those people are languishing behind bars without trial or respect for their rights,” said Saibaba.
He said that he too suffered without trial in custody for fighting for the democratic rights of the people. “It is these poor tribals who looked after me and my needs in the jail,” said the professor, who also taught English to the inmates.
“The government had wanted to know the solution of the grievances of the tribals around three years ago. I had forwarded a simple solution of implementing the fifth schedule of the Constitution in toto, which will bring an end to all problems of the tribals. Even today, I want the government to ensure that the constitutional provisions are implemented to give the tribal their rights over their lands and forest,” he said.
Saibaba, while highlighting the torture of the inmates, compared Nagpur Central Jail to Iraq’s Abu Ghraib to highlight its torture. “The jail administration did not physically torture me but their ruthlessness with others after the jail break episode was sickening. They even ignored state chief minister Devendra Fadnavis’s instructions not to thrash a man from whom a mobile phone was recovered during the visit of the politician,” said Saibaba.
http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/index.aspx?eid=31804&dt=20150704#
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