Dear Friends

We had filed a contempt petition against the Chattisgarh government in march this year, for going against the SC order by creating an armed auxiliary force, and also refusing to carry out any rehabilitation or criminal prosecution of those guilty, despite repeated directions by the court.

The CBI had also filed an affidavit in March after they were attacked by the (“Former”) SPOs while investigating the attack on Swami Agnivesh.

Both of those were to come up tomorrow, July 13, but as usual, the Chhattisgarh government is seeking an adjournment.

The Collector of Sukma, Alex Paul Menon, who was abducted, said in an interview that the Maoists had no answers to his questions. Whether the Maoists do or not, what is abundantly clear is that his government has no answers – as to why they are killing innocent people, why they cannot compensate everyone for their losses in Salwa Judum when they are so busy tom tomming the crores they are spending on their integrated action plan, for whose “safety” and whose rights they are pouring in paramilitary forces.

On the way back from Kottaguda I met a CRPF man who was off for “officer training.” We got talking about the incident, and I mentioned that children had been killed. First he denied that any children had been killed, then he started shouting what about the “hommon rights” of the 76 CRPF men. Did they deserve to be killed when they were just doing their duty, he asked. As for the children, they must have come “in between” the crossfire. When I pointed out that the killing of the 76 CRPF men was very sad, but their
duty involved killing or being killed and they were on combing operations while the children were just sitting in their own village, he went ballistic and spent the next two hours shouting at the bus about how the crpf was there to protect the adivasis. I am sure he will make a fine officer.

Nandini