Rashmi Drolia | Mar 12, 2016, 

 

RAIPUR: AAP leader and tribal rights activist Soni Sori‘s nephew Lingaram Kodopi has announced that he will end his life on March 23 alleging that he was fed up with continuous harassment and victimization by Bastar police in Chhattisgarh.

“I am tired and sick of routine threats. I am being tagged as Maoist sympathizer, my phone is constantly on surveillance, and I am being tracked and followed everywhere I go. I have lost the freedom to live and earn. Now, I have decided to end my life on March 23,” he says. In a whatsapp message circulated by Linga around midnight today, he alleged that he and his family were being hounded by police and that he was fed up with the continuous threats by the police who would anytime drag him out if “I don’t appear before them for interrogation in Soni Sori’s attack case”.

March 23 is witnessed as Martyr’s Day, when Indian revolutionary Bhagat Singh was hanged, Linga says, adding, “Let me decide the date of my death myself. I won’t allow Bastar IG to decide that. It’s better to kill yourself instead of being shot at by police’s gun who would consider me a Maoist or attacker of my own aunt.”

Sori was attacked with chemical like substance on her face on February 20 and “since then on pretext of interrogating and questioning, police have been picking up our family members and cousins to police stations and threatening us. Bastar IG SRP Kalluri and his officers have been forcing me to accept that I have planned an attack on Sori. I am his nephew and I am with her like her shadow 24*7. It was only that day I wasn’t with her when I committed the biggest mistake of my life. And since then police have been suspecting that I was the culprit,” Linga said.

Saying that Bastar Police would soon crack the case of attack on Soni Sori, IG SRP Kalluri said, “We are moving scientifically to get hold of the accused and hence, we are picking up people for questioning and recording their statement. Meanwhile, we have got some clues and mobile phone locations of people who were present close to the spot of incident on February 20. There’s a conspiracy and we are trying to connect the dots in this case, leaving all anti-naxalite operations behind.”

Talking to TOI, Linga continued elaborating, “I have already given my statement twice to officials of special investigative team, still they continue calling me for the same thing. Today they have released Sori’s cousin sister Dhaneshwari and her husband Ajay Markam after interrogation of more than 10 hours and have sent a message ‘they will kill me in an encounter as a Naxalite‘.”

Police want to interrogate me in a closed room and like in the past, they have all plans to torture me. “I am sure they will beat me up just like Ajay Markam. Police have verbally abused him and beaten him black and blue at Padpad police station in Jagdalpur in Bastar. Dhaneshwari returned crying and said that I was on their target and police would soon round me up and implicate me to attack on Sori,” he says.

Lingaram is a Muria tribal and hails from Sameli village of Dantewada who was accused of helping Maoists and tortured at police station’s toilet, forced to become special police officer in 2010 and was later released in 2013.http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/raipur/Soni-Soris-nephew-Lingaram-alleges-police-pressure-threatens-to-end-his-life-on-March-23/articleshow/51366981.cms