Mystery Deaths

Mysterious Deaths of Indian Nuclear Scientists over a period

TOI Report

Indian nuclear scientists haven't had an easy time of it over the past decade. Not only has the scientific community been plagued by "suicides," unexplained deaths, and sabotage, but those incidents have gone mostly under-reported in the country—diluting public interest and leaving the cases quickly cast off by police.

Last month, two high-ranking engineers—KK Josh and Abhish Shivam—on India's first nuclear-powered submarine were found on railway tracks by workers. They were pulled from the line before a train could crush them, but were already dead. No marks were found on the bodies, so it was clear they hadn't been hit by a moving train, and reports allege they were poisoned elsewhere before being placed on the tracks to make the deaths look either accidental or like a suicide. The media and the Ministry of Defence, however, described the incident as a routine accident and didn't investigate any further.  [bxA] 
This is the latest in a long list of suspicious deaths. When nuclear scientist
Lokanathan Mahalingam's (youtube) body turned up in June of 2009, it was palmed off as a suicide and largely ignored by the Indian media. However, Pakistani outlets, perhaps unsurprisingly, given relations between the two countries, kept the story going, noting how quick authorities were to label the death a suicide considering no note was left.

Lokanath Mahalingam

Five years earlier, in the same forest where Mahalingham's body was eventually discovered, an armed group with sophisticated weaponry allegedly tried to abduct an official from India's Nuclear Power Corporation (NPC). He, however, managed to escape. Another NPC employee, Ravi Mule, had been murdered weeks before, with police failing to "make any headway" into his case and effectively leaving his family to investigate the crime. A couple of years later, in April of 2011, when the body of former scientist Uma Rao was found, investigators ruled the death as suicide, but family members contested the verdict, saying there had been no signs that Rao was suicidal.  

Uma Rao

This seems to be a recurring theme with deaths in the community. Madhav Nalapat, one of the few journalists in India giving the cases any real attention, has been in close contact with the families of the recently deceased scientists left on the train tracks. "There was absolutely no kind of depression or any family problems that would lead to suicide," he told me over the phone.

If the deaths of those in the community aren't classed as suicide, they're generally labeled as "unexplained." A good example is the case of M Iyer, who was found with internal haemorrhaging to his skull—possibly the result of a "kinky experiment," according to a police officer. After a preliminary look-in, the police couldn't work out how Iyer had suffered internal injuries while not displaying any cuts or bruises, and investigations fizzled out.  

This label is essentially admission of defeat on the police force's part. Once the "unexplained" rubber stamp has been approved, government bodies don't tend to task the authorities with investigating further. This may be a necessity due to the stark lack of evidence available at the scene of the deaths—a feature that some suggest could indicate the work of professional killers—but if this is the case, why not bring in better trained detectives to investigate the cases? A spate of deaths in the nuclear scientific community would create a media storm and highly publicised police investigation in other countries, so why not India?

This inertia has led to great public dissatisfaction with the Indian police. "[The police] say it's an unsolved murder, that's all. Why doesn't it go higher? Perhaps to a specialist investigations unit?" Madhav asked. "These people were working on the submarine program, creating a reactor, and have either 'committed suicide' or been murdered. It's astonishing that this hasn't been seen as suspicious."

Perhaps, I suggested, this series of deaths is just the latest chapter in a long campaign aiming to derail India's nuclear and technological capabilities. Madhav agreed, "There is a clear pattern of this type of activity going on," he said.

The explosions that sunk INS Sindhurakshak – a submarine docked in Mumbai – in August of this year could have been deliberate, according to unnamed intelligence sources. And some have alleged that the CIA was behind the sabotage of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

Of course, the deaths have caused fear and tension among those currently working on India's various nuclear projects. "[Whistleblowers] are getting scared of being involved in the nuclear industry in India," Madhav relayed to me. Their "families are getting very nervous about this" and "many of them leave for foreign countries and get other jobs."

There are parallels here with the numerous attacks on the Iranian nuclear scientist community. Five people associated with the country's nuclear programme have been targeted in the same way: men on motorcycles sticking magnetic bombs on to their cars and detonating them as they drive off. However, the Iranian government are incredibly vocal in condemning these acts—blaming the US and Israel—and at least give the appearance that they are actively investigating.

The same cannot be said for the Indian government. "India is not making any noise about the whole thing," Madhav explained. "People have just accepted the police version, [which describes these incidents] as normal kinds of death."

If the deaths do, in fact, turn out to be premeditated murders, deciding who's responsible is pure speculation at this point. Two authors have alleged that the US have dabbled in sabotaging the country's technological efforts in the past; China is in a constant soft-power battle with India; and the volatile relationship with Pakistan makes the country a prime suspect. "It could be any of them," Madhav said.
But the most pressing issue isn't who might be behind the murders, but that the Indian government's apathy is potentially putting their high-value staff at even greater risk. Currently, these scientists, who are crucial to the development of India's nuclear programes, whether for energy or security, have "absolutely no protection at all. Nothing, zero," Madhav told me. "Which is amazing for people who are in a such a sensitive program."

Courtesy: VICE

Tukaram Omble

The Policeman who stopped terrorists with a Baton!! 
 
Omble was on the night shift at a police station off Chowpatty in south Mumbai, when a message was received about two gunmen speeding towards Malabar hill after hijacking a vehicle near Marine Drive.  The message came after reports of shooting at the Chhatrapati Shivaji rail terminus and hotels like Oberoi and Taj.

Omble along with his colleagues took up positions near  Girgaum Chowpatty to stop the Skoda car. Omble was armed with a baton and a radio. The car approached at a high speed, but stopped 50 feet from the barricade. Suddenly, the beam lights went on, and the car swerved towards the barricades. Omble was the first to rush out fro

However, thanks to Omble’s bravery, Kasab was caught alive and confessed to his crime revealing the masterminds who had plotted the attacks from across the border. 

Tukaram Omble - 26/11 Martyr

Omble was the first to rush out from behind the barricades and attempted to grab Kasab who had jumped out of the vehicle. 

A DNA report described his bravery in graphic detail: 

The two terrorists were armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles and hand grenades; he carried just a walkie-talkie. There was no way assistant sub-inspector (ASI) Tukaram Omble, 48, could have survived the encounter. But before dying, he ensured that at least one of the 26/11 terrorists was caught alive.

Omble was asked by his senior to take up position on Marine Drive on Wednesday night, after the news of firings at Leo-pold Caf�, Oberoi and Taj Hotels came in.

Around 12.45 am, he got an alert on his walkie-talkie that two terrorists had hijacked a Skoda car and were heading for Girgaum Chowpatty. Just minutes later, the Skoda whizzed past him.

Omble jumped on to his two-wheeler and chased the car. A team from DB Marg police station was setting up a naka bandi at the chowpatty signal. As the car approached the signal, the terrorists opened fire on the cops, but were forced to reduce speed because of the barricades.

Omble overtook the Skoda and stopped in front of it, forcing the driver of the car to swerve right and hit the divider. With the terrorists momentarily distracted, Omble sprang toward one of them, Amir Kasab, and gripped the barrel of the AK47 rifle with both hands. With the barrel pointing towards Omble, Amir pulled the trigger. A spray of bullets entered his stomach and intestine. Omble collapsed, but held on to the gun till he breathed his last, stopping Amir from shooting anyone else.

The other cops, who by that time had killed the other terrorist, Ismail, pounced on Amir and captured him. The investigation agencies were reported to have gathered a lot of information from the sole terrorist captured.

 Omble is survived by his wife and four daughters. He is a real hero. Let's salute him.

 It also resulted in Pakistan initiating a trial against accused like Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed.

Omble was awarded the nation’s highest peace-time gallantry award, the Ashok Chakra. 

For his family, the news of the hanging of Kasab was a form of closure. “We were waiting for this day. I am glad that today the President and the Home minister took the right decision. A terrorist like Kasab should have been hanged in public,” Tukaram Omble’s brother Eknath Omble told reporters.

Courtesy: FirstPost here

Anil Futane

No, he is not an activist, neither a social reformer nor an oppressor, but is one of those oppressed badly. His story is important to understand what and how the family of Soni Sori (story published below in this same blog) must be feeling. I tried hard but couldn't find the picture of that person.

Soni Sori’s husband, Anil Futane, died on 2 August at his native place in Geedum tehsil in Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh. Like Soni, he had been arrested and jailed as a Maoist. On 1 May 2013 he was acquitted by the court after spending nearly three years in jail. While in jail he was beaten so severely he became paralyzed. Soni, Anil’s wife, is still lodged in Jagdalpur central jail and his last rites were performed in her absence.

Soni and her husband were residents of Sameli village in Chhattisgarh. While Soni was a teacher in a government primary school, her husband, Anil ferried local passengers in a Bolero jeep. In July 2010 a case was filed against Soni Sori, Anil and Lingaram Kodopi for carrying out a naxal attack on the house of Avdhesh Gautam, a Congress leader from Nakulnar in the Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh. Although Anil was acquitted in all the cases, his health has severely deteriorated in the three years he spent in jail.

NRK Pillai, a CPI leader and a senior journalist from Dantewada, says that the police left Anil at his house in the Geedum tehsil of Dantewada. Although he had been acquitted in all the cases, no one came forward for his treatment. Pillai says he had gone to Anil’s house to meet him and saw that he was in serious need of medical attention. He talked to his associates in Delhi regarding Anil’s health and was advised to send him to Delhi for proper treatment. According to Pillai no one came forward to take Anil to Delhi because of police fear.

A prisoner, who was lodged in Jagdalpur jail along with Anil, told TEHELKA on condition of anonymity, “Police torture had taken a heavy toll on Anil’s health and he started staying ill in  jail. By the time he was released he was already paralyzed. His wife was in jail and there was no one to look after him.”

TEHELKA has been consistently following the Soni Sori case, one of the biggest symbols of police atrocity and torture in this country. A teacher in a government primary school in Jabeli village, Dantewada, Sori fled the state fearing for her life and reached New Delhi seeking legal assistance but was arrested in Delhi by the Chhattisgarh police in October 2011 for being a “Maoist on the run”. She was charged by the police, along with her nephew, for acting as a conduit of Maoists to collect protection money from an Essar contractor. Charges of conspiracy, sedition, waging war against the state and those related to contributing to terrorist activity and raising funds for terrorist activity have been slapped against her in seven cases she is fighting in Dantewada.

Sori had earlier complained about inhuman treatment being meted out to her in Raipur jail and had accused a senior police officer Ankit Garg of sexual torture in police custody. In a medical examination conducted on her by the orders of Supreme Court, several stones were recovered from her private parts.

Courtesy:  Report here

सोनी को थाने में पीटते समय और बिजली के झटके देते समय एसपी अंकित गर्ग सोनी से यही तो जिद कर रहा था कि सोनी एक झूठा कबूलनामा लिख कर दे दे जिसमे वो यह लिखे कि अरुंधती राय , स्वामी अग्निवेश , कविता श्रीवास्तव , नंदिनी सुंदर , हिमांशु कुमार, मनीष कुंजाम और उसका वकील सब नक्सली हैं ! ताकि इन सभी सामाजिक कार्यकर्ताओं को एक झटके में जेल में डाला जा सके !
 सरकार मानती है कि ये सामजिक कार्यकर्ता छत्तीसगढ़ में आदिवासियों की ज़मीनों पर कंपनियों का कब्ज़ा नहीं होने दे रहे हैं ! इसलिये एक बार अगर इन सामजिक कार्यकर्ताओं को झूठे मामलों में जेल में डाल दिया जाए तो छत्तीसगढ़ में आदिवासियों पर सरकारी फौजों के हमलों पर आवाज़ उठाने वाला कोई नहीं बचेगा ! फिर आराम से बस्तर की आदिवासियों की ज़मीने कंपनियों को बेच कर पैसा कमा सकेंगे !
Courtesy - Blog here

Complete Story - here

Pale Ram Chauhan

A poster by Change.org

 He was a Noida resident and was working to expose Sand Mafia. Gunned down at his home in Sec126, on July31, 2013.

TOI Report:

Pale Ram Chauhan

NOIDA: A day after a 50-year old crusader against illegal sand dredging was alleged shot dead by members of sand mining mafia, police have arrested three of the main accused for the murder. Even as other accused remain at large, the family of the victim has demanded a CBI probe into the case. They alleged that the administration was responsible for the victim, Pale Ram Chauhan's death, as repeated complaints against the illegal sand mining in their village had been ignored.

According to the police, the main accused in the murder case were rounded up from the Okhla area on Thursday evening. Police said they were attempting to flee to Delhi and then Haryana, when they were caught. The arrested have been identified as Rajpal and his two sons, Sonu and Kuldeep. Police have now launched an intensive manhunt to apprehend the other culprits involved in the crime. Preetinder Singh, Senior Superintendent of Police, Gautam Budh Nagar said they had formed teams to look out for the accused. "We have launched a rigorous pursuit and should round up the other accused soon," Singh said. Police further maintained that the murder had taken place due to a land dispute, which had been carrying on for several years.

However, the family of the victim continued to claim that the murder was because of Pale Ram's opposition to sand mining activities in the area. They said had been reporting about the illegal activities since the year 2004. "We have not only filed written complaints to the district administration but have also sought judicial help," said Ravindra Chauhan, Pale Ram's younger son. Showing TOI newspaper clippings dating back to 2004, Ravindra lamented that if officials had listened to them, their father would still be alive.

Denying the family's claims about inaction by the administration, police officials said that several offenders had been arrested in the complaints received from the villagers of Raipur.

A visit to the garm sabha land, where the victim and other villagers sowed their crops revealed huge craters dug several feet deep by the mining mafia. Allegedly the suspects for the murder of Pale Ram the family of the deceased has named in their complaint to the police, used to not only dredge sand from their fields but also from surrounding fields in the vicinity. "My father often objected to their dumpers trespassing through our fields. But they refused to stop. Instead they constantly threatened that they would kill us if we objected to their activity," Ravindra said. "A few days back, my neighbour's mobile phone was broken by the miscreants as he had tried to film their activities on his smart phone. He was also threatened," Ravindra said.

Pale Ram Chauhan was killed on Wednesday by three armed and masked men on a motorcycle when they barged into his house in broad daylight. They fired repeatedly at him at close range and Chauhan was hit by five bullets. The bullets hit him in the head, chest, face and hand and he succumbed to his injuries on the spot. The family of the Pale Ram, who was opposing the illegal sand mining activity, said that the sand mining mafia had shot him in an attempt to create fear in anyone out to stand up against them. They also said that the mafia had become bolder in the wake of the SDM, Durga Shakti Nagpal's suspension as she had created fear in them.

Narendra Dabholkar

Narendra jee was working to eradicate superstitions, he was assassinated on 20 August 2013 while he was very close to pass Anti-Superstition and Black Magic Ordinance in Maharashtra. This bill was passed and brought into affect four days later of his death.

Wikipedia Link here

Narendra Dabholkar

After working as a doctor for 12 years, Dabholkar became a social worker in the 1980s.He became involved with movements for social justice, such as Baba Adhav's One village - One well agitation.
Gradually, Dabholkar started focusing on eradication of superstition, and joined the Akhil Bharatiya Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti (ABANS). In 1989, he founded the Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti (MANS, "Committee for Eradication of Superstition in Maharashtra" or "Maharashtra Committee for Eradication of Blind Faith"), and campaigned against superstitions, confronting dubious tantriks and claimed holy men who promised 'miracle cures' for ailments.He criticised the country's "godmen", self-styled Hindu ascetics who claim to perform miracles and have many followers.He was the founding member of Parivartan, a social action centre located in Satara district, that seeks to "empower marginalized members of the community to lead lives of security, dignity, and prosperity". He was closely associated with the Indian rationalist Sanal Edamaruku. Dabholkar was the editor of a renowned Marathi weekly Sadhana, which was founded by Sane Guruji.He also served earlier as a vice president of the Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations.
Between 1990–2010, Dabholkar was active in a movements for the equality of Dalits (untouchables) and against India's caste system and caste-related violence. He advocated renaming the Marathwada University after Babasaheb Ambedkar, who is often called the author of India's constitution and fought for the equality of Dalits. Dabholkar wrote books on superstitions and their eradication, and had addressed over 3,000 public meetings.[5] He had taken on Asaram Bapu in March 2013 over an incident during Holi in Nagpur, when Bapu and his followers used drinking water from tankers brought from the Nagpur Municipal Corporation for celebrating the festival and were accused of wasting it while rest of Maharashtra faced drought.

In 2010, Dabholkar made several failed attempts to get an anti-superstition law enacted in the state of Maharashtra. Under his supervision, MANS drafted the Anti-Jaadu Tona Bill (Anti-Superstition and Black Magic Ordinance).It was opposed by some political parties and the Warkari sect.Political parties like the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Shiv Sena opposed it claiming it would adversely affect Hindu culture, customs and traditions. Critics accused him of being anti-religion but in an interview with the Agence France-Presse news agency he said, "In the whole of the bill, there's not a single word about God or religion. Nothing like that. The Indian constitution allows freedom of worship and nobody can take that away, this is about fraudulent and exploitative practices."
A couple of weeks before his death on 6 August 2013, Dabholkar had complained in a press conference that the bill had not been discussed despite being tabled in seven sessions of the state assembly. He had criticized the Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Prithviraj Chavan, stating that the minister had disappointed the progressive people in the state. A day after Dabholkar's murder, the Maharashtra Cabinet cleared the Anti-Superstition and Black Magic Ordinance, however the parliament would still need to support the bill for it to become law.

Dabholkar had faced several threats and assaults since 1983 but had rejected police protection.
Murdered on 20 August 2013, while out on a morning walk, Dabholkar was shot down by two unidentified gunmen near Omkareshwar temple, Pune at 7:20 AM IST. The assailants fired four rounds at him from a point blank range and fled on a motorcycle parked nearby.Two bullets hit Dabholkar in his head and chest. He later succumbed to his injuries while being treated at Sassoon Hospital.
Dabholkar had originally donated his body to a medical college. But, the autopsy rendered his body unfit for academic purposes.He was cremated in Satara without any religious rites.His pyre was lit by his daughter, Mukta, in contradiction to the tradition where the son lights the pyre.His ashes were collected without any religious ceremony and scattered over his organic farm.

Dabholkar's assassination was condemned by many political leaders and social activists. The Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan announced a reward of INR10 lakh (US$15,000) to any person with information of the assailants. Furthermore, political parties called for a bandh (strike) in Pune on 21 August, and various institutions across Pune remained closed to protest Dabholkar's assassination.


On 20 August 2013, the police stated that it is under suspicion that it was a planned murder because the assailants were aware Dabholkar stays in Pune only on Mondays and Tuesdays.Chavan stated on 26 August 2013 that the police have some clues about his murder.On 2 September, the police stated that 7 surveillance cameras have captured footage of the two assassins, and the footage had been sent to a London-based forensic lab for analysis.A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by activist Ketan Tirodkar urging the case to be investigated by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) instead of the state police, over lack of faith over the latter, was rejected; the NIA said the case was well within the Indian Penal Code and it was only filed under the assumptions that right-wing activists were involved and it was a scheduled plan.

Tehelka Report 1:

Narendra Dabholkar was a maverick and yet very sensible. Mavericks generally tend to be indifferent to others, self-centered and haughty, but Narendra redefined these maverick attributes. Nevertheless, there were many contradictions in his personality which cannot be explained logically or psychologically.

He enjoyed confrontation, but  sought compromise and reconciliation.  Non-violent in his approach, he had a violent death. He believed in dialogue and was sober during arguments, but his opponents were shrill and abusive.  He advocated scientific thinking, but was a strict vegetarian (and a teetotaler). He was a socialist, but not a Marxist. He was an extremely disciplined person and any old-style proud Sangh swayamsevak would envy him for that. A medical doctor, he participated in social movements. He was a fellow traveller of the  Yuvak Kranti Dal, but never a direct activist. Although he was influenced by the JP movement, he remained outside Janata Party politics.

But what is important to note is that his life as well as his brutal death have completely exposed the hypocrisy and vacuousness of Maharashtra’s claim to be progressive and modern. Indeed, his murder has shaken the establishment to the core, much more than his lifelong struggle to eradicate superstitions from society.  For more than forty years, he worked to build the organization Andhashradha Nirmulan Samiti  ( Association to Abolish Superstition) and established a network of thousands of activists across Maharashtra – rural and urban. He had collected evidence on how thousands of women were victims of superstition and were exploited by sadhus, babas and self-proclaimed tantriks and mantriks. For him, therefore, it was also a struggle to liberate women from the shackles of vicious traditions, rituals and magic. Not only from the so-called gurus, but also from the male members of their families.

In rural Mahrashtra, humans were sacrificed as offerings for which women and children were burnt and killed. Their overall number may not be too large, but the impact of those practices was surely huge. What alarmed Dabholkar was the fact that politicians from all parties patronised these ‘saints’, advised them on their political fortunes, performed tantra to either help them become a minister or defeat/destroy a rival.

The Congress in Maharashtra proudly says that their politics inherits the values and ideals of Mahatma Phule, Shahu Maharaj and Dr. Babasaheb  Ambedkar.  However, the Congress – and in fact, all parties – know the impact this trio has on rural masses in the state. To get votes from the bahujan of Maharashtra, the Congress uses their names and legacies profusely and says that they want to recreate Maharashtra in their utopian image. [For those not familiar with them, Mahatma Jyotiba Phule was a revolutionary social reformer in the mid-nineteenth century who, with  his wife Savitri Phule, started campaigns for women’s education, for the eradication of untouchability, to abolish caste hierarchies, to get rid of superstition and to educate people and teach them English. Though mali (gardener) by caste – in today’s parlance, OBC – he was a profound social thinker and had even dedicated his book to Abraham Lincoln.  Mahatma Phule was an inspirational force for Shahu Maharaj, Sayajirao Gaikwad of Baroda and Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar.]

While the Congress used to feel embarrassed by the campaigns run by Narendra Dabholkar as their sham claims would get exposed, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Shiv Sena felt threatened because they felt that the movement was against Hindu traditions. The militant wings of the Sangh Parivar aggressively organised against Dabholkar’s movement. Not only the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajarang Dal, but also more vicious outfits like Sanatan Sanstha and their ilk. Their publications routinely abused, threatened and spread calumny against Dabholkar’s organisation and volunteers. But to their dismay, Dabholkar’s reach was expanding and gaining strength. The more support he received from the masses, intellectuals and the media, the more shrill and violent became the obscene campaign of the Sanatan outfits. Just a fortnight before he was killed, some of their activists openly said that Dabholkar would meet the same fate as Gandhi. Social media websites were aflame with  vulgar abuses and innuendo against Dabholkar – before his death and even after.

I have known Narendra for nearly forty years and I used to attend, participate and campaign for the ideas that he and his organization used to spread.  He was extremely disciplined and was fastidious about time-management. He was always meticulous in his work – from organizing demonstrations and performances exposing so-called magic and tantra to preparing legislative drafts. He had colleagues and comrades, not ‘followers’. His discussions with volunteers used to be open sessions. They would relate terrifying tales from their villages – which even the police were not aware of or had often connived in.

Every time he exposed the exploitation of poor villagers, there would be some sadhu or thug sanyasi protected or sponsored by a politician involved. While the BJP and the Sangh Parivar opposed him ideologically and politically, the Congress ‘welcomed’ his campaign publicly, but did nothing to enact laws to stop these atrocities. For nearly two decades, Dabholkar fought for strict laws against inhuman practices in the name of spirituality and Hindu traditions. The Congress and the Rashtravadi Congress promised him legislation against superstitious practices and made him amend the draft he had prepared, but then talked of legislative difficulties and shelved the draft bill. On one hand, they were afraid of losing the so-called ‘traditional Hindu vote’ and on the other, they themselves were superstitious. So they talked of not ‘hurting the sentiments’ of people and procrastinated.

The bill was finally ready, but it was not likely to be passed. So Dabholkar began his meetings with individual members of the House, party leaders, the media and opinion makers. His efforts had an impact and that is what alarmed the Sangh-Sanatan Parivar. His murder was the logical and ideological culmination – conspired, coordinated and executed in the same way Gandhiji was killed. Nathuram Godse belonged to Pune; 65 years later Narendra Dabholkar was assassinated in Pune.

Niyamat Ansari

A report by Jean Dreze:

Jean Dreze - One of the activators of NREGA

Rankikala Scam (Manika Block, Latehar):  for which Niyamat was murdered

Summary

This is an exceptional case of blatant fraud where the then acting BDO of Manika, Shri Kailash Sahu, colluded with the Panchayat Sevak of Rankikala (Shri Basudev Nagesia) to embezzle NREGA funds by bypassing the entire record-keeping system. Briefly, the Panchayat Sevak (PS) prepared two fake “Payment Advices”, for which there are no corresponding Muster Rolls, Measurement Books, MIS entries or any other records (these Payment Advices are signed by the PS and BDO only). The BDO then signed a cheque for each Payment Advice and the money was siphoned off through Post Office accounts of the fake workers, in collusion with the Postmaster Rankikala, Shri Ashok Tiwari. The workers listed in these Payment Advices live far away from the concerned worksites, and deny having worked there or having received any of the money that was withdrawn in their name from the Post Office. Some of them (e.g. Sunil Mochi s/o Banaudhi Mochi, of Aholiya Tola in Rankikala Village, a bus khalasi who never worked on NREGA) did not even know that a Post Office account had been opened in their name!

These facts were initially established by the NREGA Sahayata Kendra Manika, and submitted to the Latehar District Collector, Shri Rahul Purwar, who directed the SDO Latehar to conduct a joint enquiry with members of the Sahayata Kendra on 21 February 2011. The SDO Latehar came to Manika that day, and examined the records available at the Block office, but refused to proceed to Rankikala to verify the Post Office records or talk to the workers listed in the fake Payment Advices (he was unable to give any valid reason for this and appeared to be under pressure to protect some of the culprits). The Sahayata Kendra team (including James Herenj, Jean Drèze and Niyamat Ansari) proceeded to Rankikala, took photographs of the Post Office records, and talked to some of the workers listed in the fake Payment Advices. The SDO Latehar came back the next day and was able to verify the facts for himself.

Further information, including details of the relevant documents, are given in the attached summary report prepared by James Herenj (coordinator, Sahayata Kendra Manika). Photocopies of these documents are available on request.

This is an extreme case of brazen embezzlement, violation of all the record-keeping rules, and “capture” of the Post Office by corrupt middlemen. Stern action is essential to stop the rot. An FIR should be lodged immediately against the main culprits: Kailash Sahu (former BDO, Manika) and Basudev Nagesia (Panchayat Sevak, Rankikala).

Jean Drèze, 24 February 2011

Kafila Report:

1. Niyamat Ansari was a resident of Kope Gram Panchayat in Manika Block, Latehar District. During the last few years, he was working with Gram Swaraj Abhiyan, a local campaign for village self-rule, also involved in issues such as the right to information, the right to food and the right to work.
2. Since NREGA was launched in 2006, Niyamat Ansari and his close friend Bhukhan Singh (also from Kope Gram Panchayat) have been working for the rights of NREGA workers in the area. This included helping labourers to file work applications. From 2007 till February 2009, they supported  a demand for unemployment allowance for several workers in Kope Panchayat. Their efforts bore fruit when in the Latehar Lok Adalat in February 2009, more than 90 workers were paid unemployment allowance for the first time in Jharkhand.

   

   Niyamat Ansari
   Aruna Roy
   Arundharti Roy
   Swami Agnivesh

3. Their fight against corruption in NREGA made them very unpopular in the eyes of local vested interests especially private contractors (who are still in control of many NREGA works in large parts of Jharkhand). In October 2008, they were attacked in their village and hid in a pile of wood to save their lives. In February 2009, immediately after the Lok Adalat, false cases were slapped against them.
4. Residents of Kope Gram Panchayat were attacked by goons in March 2009. Several people were brutally beaten, including some women.
5. In October 2010, Bhukhan and Niyamat’s homes were locked up and other residents of the village were warned against helping them. Bhukhan and Niyamat clearly identified Shankar Dubey (a notorious local contractor) as the person behind this attack on them as well as behind the earlier attempt on their lives, in October 2008
6. In February 2011, Niyamat Ansari and others exposed a Rs. 2.5 lakh scam in NREGA in Rankikalan Gram Panchayat. Kailash Sahu, former BDO of Manika Block and Basudev Nagesia (Panchayat Sewak of Rankikalan) played a key role in this scam. Babloo Dubey, son of above-mentioned Shankar Dubey, was also suspected of being involved in the scam. After an enquiry, an FIR was lodged against the BDO and Panchayat Sewak on 1 March 2011.
7. On 2 March, 2011 a group of armed men in uniforms abducted Niyamat from his residence in Jerua village (Kope Gram Panchayat). He was brutally beaten for nearly one hour. According to eye witnesses, this was done by the same people as in October 2008. It is strongly suspected that these men were instigated by Shankar Dubey and his associates. After they deserted him, Niyamat’s brother and other family members carried his unconscious body on a charpoy from Jerua village to Manika thana, a distance of about 10km. Niyamat’s family reached Manika thana on foot, with Niyamat unconscious on a charpoy,  before the administration managed to send an ambulance to them. After this, Niyamat was brought to Latehar Sadar Hospital. Soon after reaching there, he died. Despite being alerted to the danger to their lives, the district and state administration failed to save his life.
8. Bhukhan Singh was also being sought out, but he was able to save his life by hiding. On the morning of 3 March, 2011 he was brought to Latehar by the district authorities.
9. On 3 March, 2011, an FIR was lodged in Latehar against eight persons believed to be responsible for Niyamat Ansari’s murder. Those named in the FIR are Sudarshan, Shankar Dubey, Vijay Dubey, Purushottam Prashad, Arun Singh, Vashisht Tiwari, Prem Chand Singh and Devas Singh. The Superintendent of Police (SP) Latehar promised to arrest them all without delay.
10. Sudarshan, named in the FIR, is known as the local Maoist “commander”. The other persons named in the FIR, starting with Shankar Dubey, are mainly local contractors or their associates. Some of them, including Shankar Dubey and Arun Singh, have political party affiliations and are believed to enjoy the protection and patronage of local politicians or former politicians.
11. On 5 March, 2011, local newspapers including Prabhat Khabar and Dainik Bhaskar published a statement (No. 25, available on request) by the South Latehar Sub-zonal Committee of CPI (Maoist) claiming responsibility for the murder. Their main complaint against Niyamat in that statement is that he had failed to appear in a “jan adalat” they had convened to resolve a local dispute about forest land, and turned police informer. In the same statement, they warned Bhukhan Singh that if he remained under police protection and failed to come to a jan adalat, he would meet the same fate. This statement ends by absolving the others named in the FIR of the crime.
12. On 6 March, 2011, a joint delegation of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) and United Milli Forum (UMF) visited the area and conducted a thorough enquiry. This enquiry confirmed the above-mentioned series of events. Their report is awaited.
13. On 7 March, the Indian Express carried an inaccurate and insidious article claiming that the DC and SP of Latehar had sent a report to the Ministry of Rural Development stating that Niyamat had cases of “attempt to murder” against him and had been responsible for the burning of Adivasi huts. There are no such cases against Niyamat, nor did the DC and SP claim this in their report. The following day the Indian Express carried an apology for the same (a personal apology was also received by email from the concerned reporter).
14. At the time of writing (9 March 2011), only one of those named in the FIR (Arun Singh) has been arrested.

Kameshwar Yadav

HardNewsMedia Report:

The widespread corruption in the flagship scheme of the UPA government, NREGA, is hidden from none. Social audits conducted by civil society groups and individuals have proved the existence of corrupt practices being followed by the district administration of various states. These social audits are threatening the people who have been brazenly siphoning off funds from public schemes for decades. Consequently, this public accountability in grassroots democracy is turning out to be dangerous for those directly involved in exposing irregularities in the scheme. That is, those who want the NREGA to be a success.
On May 15, a mutilated body (eyes gouged out and face smashed) was found near the Kanda forest in Palamu district of Jharkhand. The body was that of Lalit Mehta, secretary of Vikas Sahyog Kendra, an NGO that has been actively working on the right to food and NREGA schemes. He blew the whistle on widespread corruption in the scheme in Palamu.

Kameshwar Yadav

Lalit Mehta was last seen on May 14 with Jean Dreze, well known economist, former member of the National Advisory Council headed by Sonia Gandhi, and one of the architects of NREGA. He was seen in the small town of Daltoganj. He left in the evening for Chatarpur in Jharkhand. His dead body was later recovered by the adjoining Bishrampur Police Station.
Some people who live near the spot saw a man being beaten by a group. One man in Silda village went to check his well at night since he thought that the body might have been dumped there. No arrests have been made till date. Instead, the district administration has implicated Jean Dreze in its report. Activists claim that this is a brazen attempt to protect the criminals.
The report mentions that Robert, Lalit's brother-in-law, was aggressive and violent and always opposed his marriage with his sister. The report states that the other motive of the murder could have been the huge money transactions that took place at Vikas Sahyog Kendra. "This is totally baseless as it has been 10 years since Lalit has been married. So the Robert angle never arises. As far as money is concerned, Lalit has not paid his rent for months, his LIC policy has expired and his bank account has only Rs 800," says Jawahar Mehta, an activist who worked closely with the activist.
"The report shows that the police have made no serious enquiries into Lalit Mehta's murder. It does not provide any credible clue to this murder, but raises a number of mischievous conjectures using selective evidence. For instance, the report refers to interviews with Lalit Mehta's brother and his sons, without mentioning that the sons are one and three years old, respectively. Meanwhile, evidence from extensive interviews with Lalit's wife, Ashrita, is ignored. Further, the report is full of factual mistakes.
Even the date of the murder is incorrect: Lalit Mehta was murdered on May 14, not on May 15, as stated in the report," said Aruna Roy, Arundhati Roy, Prabhash Joshi, Harsh Mander, among other eminent activists, writers and journalists, in a statement.
Locals in Jharkhand complain of an entrenched nexus of politicians, contractors and district officials. They believe that Lalit was murdered so that no one would dare to enter these areas to conduct a social audit. Jean Dreze and Balram (NREGA advisor to the food commissioner appointed by the Supreme Court of India) in a joint statement said, "If this murder was an act to intimidation, it did not succeed. Friends and supporters from all over Jharkhand gathered at Vikas Sahyog Kendra and unanimously resolved to continue the campaign against corruption and exploitation in the area."
After facing pressure from various quarters, the state government, after more than a month of the murder, ordered a CBI probe. But the case has not yet reached the Public Grievances Cell which will take a call on it and then pass it on to the Central Vigilance Committee, which will then forward it to the CBI. Then, it's up to the CBI to take the case.
The high profile Arushi murder case was taken over by an ‘active CBI' in 24 hours after the UP government's request, but no one knows how much time the CBI would take in Jharkhand. The case has been transferred to the CBI, but the local CID is reportedly still interfering. Said NBA's Medha Patkar: "They must get to the bottom of the case. This is not only the responsibility of the Jharkhand government, but also that of the Centre. This is a central scheme."
However, in Jharkhand, the circle of murders continues. Kameshwar Yadav, a prominent NREGA activist of Khatauri village, Deori Block in Giridih district, was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in June 7. Yadav was a member of the CPI-ML (Liberation), an overground organisation working with the poor. He was involved in exposing the corrupt role of contractors and middlemen. He relentlessly highlighted irregularities in the NREGS and mobilised landless labourers and job-seekers for implementation of the scheme. The district administration has arrested two individuals, but the case has not been cracked.
The Congress-RJD backed coalition in Jharkhand seems rather non-committal, even while NREGA is the UPA's baby. Tek Lal Mahto, JMM MP in Giridh, told : "I am not aware of any of these murders as I am not involved in any of the NREGA work. I am aware of the high level corruption among senior government officials in my constituency. I have also raised this issue in Parliament."
In recent past, several such incidents have occurred in different parts of the country where social audits are being conducted. Members of these teams are warned, physically threatened, provoked and sometimes brutally beaten up. Recalling the violence in Jhalawar, Rajasthan, Aruna Roy, member of the Centre's Employment Guarantee Council, said, "When we went to do social audit in Jhalawar, we were chased away. Someone even tied a noose around the neck of one of the women. If a little force would have been used, she too would have died."
- See more at: http://www.hardnewsmedia.com/2008/07/2264#sthash.WSQ7KKuj.dpuf

Lalit Mehta

Wikipedia:

Lalit Mehta (1972–2008) was an Indian RTI activist, who was killed brutally near Palamau on May 14, 2008. He was a prominent member of The Right to Food Campaign, working in the Vikas Sahyog Kendra in Palamau District and was using his Right to information to expose scams in National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA).

The Jharkhand government looking into strong protests and public rally held in Ranchi later ordered a CBI probe into murder.

Lalit Mehta

After his murder, the naxals belonging Communist Party of India (Maoist) distributed a leaflet claiming that they know the killers of Lalit Mehta and they will be brought to justice saying that we will make the perpetrators of heinous crimes such as murder pay with their lives, which created a flutter among rank and file of police and government. Later in January 2009, Ranchi Police recovered body of one Raju Singh, who was prime accused in murder of Lalit Mehta, claiming that he was killed by naxals.
Lalit Mehta is survived by a wife and two sons.

National RTI Forum has honored his martyrdom by naming an award after him as Lalit Mehta RTI Gallantry award

Report:

Recently, two people were killed in isolated independent incidents, both very alarming and revealing of an underlying untruth.

Mr. Lalit Mehta, an activist of Vikas Sahyog Kendra, was trying to organise social audits to help the NREGA function better. We are deeply disturbed by the recent murder of Lalit Kumar Mehta, member of Vikas Sahyog Kendra (Palamau District), who was brutally killed on 14 May 2008 as he was returning from Daltonganj to Chhattarpur on a motorcycle.

The circumstances of this murder are disturbing. Lalit (aged 36), an active member of the right to food campaign and Gram Swaraj Abhiyan, has been working in this area for more than 15 years on issues related to the right to food and the right to work. He was a very gentle person and his work was widely appreciated. However he was also fearless in exposing corruption and exploitation, and often came in the way of vested interests.

At the time of this incident, Lalit was helping a team of volunteers from Delhi and elsewhere to conduct a social audit of NREGA works in Chainpur and Chhattarpur Blocks of Palamau District. Attempts had already been made to dissuade the team from conducting this investigation, particularly in Chainpur Block. Is it a coincidence that Lalit was murdered just one day after the investigation began?
If this murder was an act of intimidation, it did not succeed. Friends and supporters from all over Jharkhand gathered at Vikas Sahyog Kendra on 17 May. They unanimously resolved to continue the campaign against corruption and exploitation in this area. [link]
Mr. Kameshwar Yadav tried to use RTI to get the NREGA details, he was another activist who wanted to verify the system to help it work better.
Giridih, June 8: In a rerun of the Lalit Mehta murder case, Kameshwar Yadav, an NREGA activist, was killed by unidentified gunmen near Gaadi village about nine last night.

Kameshwar was returning to his Khatori residence — about 75km from here — after taking part in a CPI-ML bandh over the fuel price rise in block headquarters Deori.

Rajkumar Yadav, a CPI-ML state committee member, said being a morally upright person, Kameshwar had questioned — under the Right to Information Act — the nexus flourishing among officers, leaders, contractors and middlemen regarding minor irrigation work in Deori.

Kameshwar was also a block committee member of the party. CPI-ML leaders, including MLA Vinod Singh, blocked the Jamua-Koderma road for around six hours today demanding the arrest of criminals. Giridih SP Murari Lal Meena said that the killers would be arrested within June 13. [link]

NREGA is a wonderful scheme, it is aimed at guaranteeing the constitutional right to work to rural people by providing employment to one person from each household in rural areas. It is a flagship of the congress government and was flouted very proudly at the congress 4 year anniversary. But there are many skeletons in the closet. Mr. Mihir Shah writes about the discrepancies in implementation.

But even after the enactment of NREGA, things have been slow to change at the grass-roots. Displaying remarkable ingenuity, the old order is already finding ways to sidestep the radical provisions of the Act. Contractors deploy machines with impunity, even as forged muster rolls are filled up with fictitious names and thumb-marks of workers, to show as if the work was done by labour. This is especially the case in States like Jharkhand, which still do not have elected Gram Panchayats. [link]

Even Mr. Shourie in his article has raised some objections about how ‘right’ data is filled after initial data is pencilled in so that the performance of the flagship program of Congress remains grande.

After citing what the PM, FM, etc. have been saying about ensuring outcomes and not being lulled by outlays, Saxena asks, and ‘How is outcome delivered in the states?’, and answers, ‘By falsifying records!’ He cites the tour observations of a person in a position to know, and unlikely to state things that would embarrass the Government:

‘We discovered that all data of children at the centre for the past five months, weight, vaccinations, health records etc, were filled in with pencils. On probing further, I found it was done so that in case of an official inspection, the figures could be erased and “correct” data inserted to make the centre’s performance look good!’

The writer? The Congress MP, Sachin Pilot. Recalling such accounts, Saxena observes, ‘The practice is so widely prevalent in all the states, presumably with the connivance of senior officers, that the data reaching GOI [according to a recent study by the National Institute of Public Cooperation and Child Development] shows only 8% as the overall percentage of malnourished children in case of 0-3 years (with only one percent children severely malnourished), as against 46% reported by NFHS-3.

What is equally astonishing is the fact that records show a steep decline in the percentage of malnourished children from 29% to 8%, which is totally at variance with the findings of the various NFHS surveys. By sending bogus reports the field officials are thus able to escape from any sense of accountability for reducing malnutrition.’ [link]

Someone had felt constrained to exclaim at the state of affairs to describe it as ‘Loot for work program’, and after these killings, it is tending towards a ‘kill for work program’!

Lalit was killed on the 14th May, and the congress celebrated its four years on the 23rd May, touting NREGA as their proud achievement. Either the congress is cheeky enough to take us voters lightly or it is sure it wont return to power. Either way, we’ll show them.

Satish Shetty

Wikipedia:

Satish Shetty (July 21, 1970 – January 13, 2010), popularly known as "Satish", was an Indian social activist, noted for exposing many land scams in Maharashtra. He had used the Right to Information Act to expose irregularities in Government offices in the last five years. He was killed on 13 January 2010, by unknown attackers in Talegaon.

Recognition

He was given posthumously the Sajag Nagrik Award, which was received by his brother Sandeep at a function held in Pune
National RTI Forum has honored his martyrdom by naming an award after him as Satish Shetty RTI Gallantry award.
In 2011 he was posthumously awarded the NDTV Indian of the Year's LIC Unsung Hero of the Year Award with other RTI activists Amit Jethwa, Dattatreya Patil, Vishram Dodiya and Vitthal Gite

From Report:

CBI investigating IRB, closely linked to a company
Purti Sagar and Power Limited run by Nitin Gadkari

Mumbai: The CBI on Friday conducted searches at the offices of IRB Infrastructure Developers Limited, in connection with the January 2010 murder of RTI activist Satish Shetty. IRB was, in fact, in news recently over its links with BJP chief Nitin Gadkari.

"Searches are being conducted at four premises of IRB in Pune," a senior CBI official said on condition of anonymity without disclosing details. A year before he was killed, Shetty had lodged a complaint with Pune police's crime branch about an alleged land scam involving IRB chairman Virendra Mhaiskar.

CBI, which was handed over the probe by the Bombay High Court last year, had on October 24 conducted searches at 11 places in connection with the murder. Shetty was killed as he stepped out of his house on January 13, 2010, at Talegaon Dabhade town in Pune district.

In 2009, Shetty had written a letter to the Pune police seeking protection as he was allegedly being threatened by Mhaiskar. Shetty had alleged that IRB and its subsidiary companies with the connivance of bureaucrats prepared fake documents to claim ownership of government land.
The IRB group is said to have extended huge unsecured loans to Purti Sugar and Power Limited run by Gadkari. The company had bagged contracts from the Maharashtra government when Gadkari was Public Works Department minister in the state.


From report:

Even as several organisations across the country have demanded a CBI probe into the August 20 killing of anti-superstition activist Narendra Dabholkar, the Bombay High Court Friday questioned the central agency's honesty in carrying out investigations into the murder of Right to Information (RTI) activist Satish Shetty who was murdered in 2010.

On January 13, 2010, Shetty was murdered in Pune, after which the Bombay High Court initiated suo motu action in the case. Shetty's brother had sought a CBI probe.

The CBI, which took over the probe on July 9, 2010, had moved the High Court challenging the 'C' summary report filed by the local crime branch, Pune (Rural) in a complaint filed by the slain RTI activist against Aryan Infrastructure and Investment. The report was accepted by the Judicial Magistrate (First class) in Vadgaon on December 27, 2011.

On Friday, Justice M L Tahaliyani told the CBI that reopening the case lodged by Shetty would not help them as nothing prevents them from making an independent inquiry into it. "They (CBI) are just killing time and are not honest with the investigation," Justice Tahaliyani observed. He told the CBI that instead of focusing on reopening of the complaint lodged by Shetty, it is crucial that the agency finds eyewitnesses in the case.

The 'C' summary report said the complaint was filed by Shetty "under misunderstanding." Shetty had filed a complaint against the developer under various IPC sections, including cheating and forgery, and said three sale deeds were executed to sell MSRDC land in Pune to the developers that were cancelled before the registration of the complaint.

"Even after the C (summary) report, the case is not closed. You (CBI) are not prevented from taking a different view and filing a chargesheet in the case," the judge remarked.

On August 13, following the High Court's direction, prosecutor Swapnil Pednekar had submitted an affidavit of assistant police inspector Sunil Tonape saying that after perusing the entire material collected during investigation, police had concluded that no offence was disclosed in the the complaint lodged by Shetty on October 15, 2009. Shetty's complaint had led to 13 persons being booked, of whom two had been arrested and one had sought anticipatory bail.

On Friday, opposing the CBI's plea against the 'C' summary report, prosecutor Deepak More told the court that the local crime branch, Pune rural would produce their case diaries to support their case.

Adjourning the case till September 17, Justice Tahaliyani told the CBI, "Instead of opening a pandora's box and failing, it is better that they (CBI officers) do their job. You consider my suggestion seriously."

Narayan Sanyal

Copied from here

Narayan Sanyal is a senior politbureau member of CPI (Maoist) who was granted bail in all three cases against him. On 8th October, 2012 SP Hazaribagh accompanied by an Inspector arrived at Hazaribagh Central Jail to search his cell claiming they had information that he was in possession of a mobile phone inside the jail premises. Subsequently, they claimed to have discovered a mobile phone and used this excuse to keep him incarcerated. Narayan Sanyal was arrested in December 2005 by the Chattisgarh police but he was officially shown as having been arrested by Andhra Pradesh police. He was then implicated along with Binayak Sen and Piyush Guha in the notorious fabricated case. The manner in which police and prosecutor are deliberately preventing CPI(Maoist) leaders from being released on bail—by either re-arresting them under preventive detention as in Sushil Roy’s case in 2011, and/or foisting trumped up case as has been done against Narayan Sanyal—clearly makes a mockery of the government claim that we live under Rule of Law. Surely, if a person is granted bail, then it stands to reason that he/she should be released too. What the latest instance yet again reveals is how police and agencies work to subvert the criminal justice system and holds the judiciary in contempt. While CDRO is moving the NHRC against such blatant violation of judicial orders we urge all democratic minded people to note this new trend which is accelerating the process of lawlessness that has come to characterise the conduct of Indian police and agencies. Asish Gupta Kranti Chaitanya (Co-ordinators CDRO) 

Copied from here

[This news story has not been confirmed from other sources.  To our knowledge, there has not been any statement from the CPI(Maoist) regarding these developments and the role of the people included in this report.--ed.]

New Delhi, September 12, 2010

In a bid to get talks with Naxals going, the Centre has roped in arrested ideologues Kobad Ghandy and Narayan Sanyal, Swami Agnivesh has revealed to Hindustan Times.

He said the two were helping him to broker a “mutual cessation of hostilities or ceasefire leading to a final agreement”. Agnivesh has been acting as a go-between for the government and the Maoists.

“With the consent and facilitation of the central government, I recently met Ghandy and Sanyal in jail for around 90 minutes each to discuss how to arrive at an understanding between the Maoists and the government,” he told HT.

Sources confirmed to HT that the government had given its “consent” to Agnivesh to involve Ghandy and Sanyal in the talks process with the Maoists.

Kobad Ghandy

Ghandy (63), a London-educated chartered accountant and a politburo member of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), is in a high security solitary cell in Delhi’s Tihar Jail. He was arrested in February under the tough Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.


Narayan Sanyal

Sanyal (74) is in jail in Raipur (Chhattisgarh). He is an accused in 21 cases including the 2003 attempt on former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu and has been in jail since January 2006.

“My meetings with Mr Ghandy and Mr Sanyal were very cordial and their response was very positive towards the peace and dialogue process,” Agnivesh said, adding Ghandy spoke of the need for confidence building measures, including protection of tribal rights and release of political prisoners.

Agnivesh, in fact, wants the government to “release Ghandy and Sanyal on parole to facilit-ate in-depth, face-to-face talk with Union Home Ministry officials who are designated to deal with the peace process.”

“I had recently even booked a space at the India International Center to organise a day-long talk among Ghandy, Sanyal, government officials and me, but the Home Ministry refused to release them on parole,” he said.


Swami Agnivesh
The Maoists, according to Agnivesh, have wanted him to involve “senior leaders” like Ghandy and Sanyal in the talks too.

“Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad—the CPI (Maoist)’s former top leader who it had authorised to conduct peace talks—who seems to have been killed in a fake encounter by the Andhra Pradesh Police in July had wanted talks with senior party leaders and then release of political prisoners,” said Agnivesh.

“In my last letter to him on June 26, I had informed him of my talks with Ghandy and Sanyal,” he added.

“But they (the government) killed the messenger.”

Cherukuri Rajkumar

‘Let Us Not Make Truth A Casualty In This War’: Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad

copied from original here

TRIBUTE
Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad, killed by the Andhra Pradesh Police, was a brilliant student of Regional Engineering College, Warangal, where he studied M.Tech in the late seventies. He led the Andhra Pradesh Radical Student Union after the Emergency. Subsequently he went underground and had been looking after political and organisational responsibilities for over 30 years. He was a member of the CPI (Maoist) Central Committee and Political Bureau and functioned as the party’s spokesperson.

Remembering the slain Maoist leader we reproduce here excerpts from the interview Azad gave to the Maoist Information Bulletin on October 19, 2009 and thereafter sent it to us for publication in Mainstream. It was carried in full in this journal’s Republic Day Special (January 30, 2010). —Editor



Q: Manmohan Singh and Chidambaram have been repeatedly appealing to the Maoists that they are prepared to sit down for talks if the Maoists lay down arms. How do you respond to this call?

Azad: I can say this is the most absurd proposal which only stupid minds can think of. It shows that these men are either completely ignorant of the historical and socio-economic factors that had given rise to the Maoist movement or are too intoxicated by the brute force that they possess by which they dream they can stamp out a movement rooted in the socio-economic causes. With such men at the political helm of India one can only foresee a terrible tragedy for the vast masses of the Indian people who reject this system and opt for a revolutionary alternative.

Manmohan and Chidambaram and all the brains in their think-tank should understand why a significant section of the people led by the Maoists have taken up arms in the first place. Can anyone who has a capacity to think imagine that Maoists have taken up arms only to lay them down without arriving at a solution to the issues confronting the Indian society? If Manmohan and Chidambaram think they are doing us a favour by offering the proposal for talks without touching upon the actual issues that serve as the basis for our armed struggle, they are only living in a fool’s paradise. It is not that these men who occupy the highest pedestals in the government do not know these things. They only want to pretend that they are for peace and that it is the Maoists who are intransigent and reluctant to sit down for talks. If these representatives of state terrorism really want to sit for talks then they have to fulfill several conditions all of which, of course, fall within the ambit of the very Constitution by which these gentlemen terrorists swear.

Q: What are those conditions?

Azad: I am just coming to the point. They should stop illegal abductions of Maoists and people suspected to be supporting Maoists. They should put an immediate halt to tortures and murders of unarmed people, instruct their so-called security forces to desist from raping women in Maoist-dominated areas, abandon their policy of destroying the property of the people and burning adivasi villages. They should withdraw the police and para-military camps from the school buildings, panchayat community buildings and from the interior areas so as to instill a sense of security among the people. They should disband the state-sponsored armed vigilante gangs like Salwa Judum, Sendra, Gram Suraksha Samiti, Nagarik Suraksha Samiti, Shanti Sena, and various types of Cobras and Tigers since all these blood-thirsty gangs are unconstitutionally established by the police top brass and the political leaders. An impartial judicial commission of enquiry should be formed to go into the inhuman atrocities by the police, CRPF, other Central forces and the vigilante gangs on Maoists and the people at large and basing on the investigations the culprits should be punished as per the law. All political prisoners that is, those arrested for being Maoists or on suspicion of aiding the Maoists, should be released unconditionally. 

They should repeal all draconian laws and Acts such as the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), Chhattisgarh Special Powers Act etc. They should disband the government-organised concentration camps in the name of rehabilitation of the adivasis displaced from their villages, pay adequate compensation to over one lakh adivasis who were forcibly displaced by the Salwa Judum gangs and the CRPF-police combine. Likewise, all those who have become victims of state and state-sponsored terror, that is, those who were murdered, maimed, raped and pushed into a state of mental trauma should receive adequate compensation. Through all these measures they should create a conducive democratic atmosphere in all these regions before placing their proposal for talks.
As for socio-economic issues, the lands of the tribals should be handed back to them wherever they are snatched whether in Salboni (West Bengal), Kathikund (Jharkhand), Lohandiguda, Pallamad, Bodhghat (all in Chhattisgarh), Niyamgiri (Orissa) and elsewhere. The mining and other so-called development projects that lead to displacement of the tribals and destruction of their way of life should be immediately disbanded. 

All the MOUs signed with the imperialist MNCs like Vedanta and the big business houses like the Tatas, Mittals, Essar, Jindal etc. should be scrapped. The lands snatched away from the tribals by unscrupulous landlords, other non-adivasis, and by the government should be restored to their rightful owners. These demands might sound utopian and revolutionary but there is nothing extraordinary in them. Most of these fall within the ambit of the Indian Constitution while others are needed for creating a conducive atmosphere for talks.
If these are fulfilled, then one can think of talks to discuss on the deeper issues that are Blocking the real development of our country.

Q: What you say will never be accepted by Manmohan and Chidambaram as it would mean betraying their own class interests. So don’t you feel that by laying down arms without such pre-conditions you can save your forces from the brutal offensive by the Centre?

Azad: We know that these diehard agents of the ruling classes whose real social base comprises of hardly five per cent of India’s population can never think in terms of the interests of the remaining 95 per cent of the population. They will not accept even these constitutional demands unless the people rise up and bring enormous pressure or rebellions break out in their own police and other armed forces...

Q: When you take into account the serious setbacks suffered by the armed national liberation movements recently in many parts of the world such as in Sri Lanka, how do you think you can confront the mighty Indian state and succeed?

Azad: Every war has its own particular, specific features. The war waged by the LTTE in Sri Lanka received a severe setback due to several mistakes which were explained vividly in a recent interview by our Party Secretary, Comrade Ganapathi. You cannot compare a people’s war waged under the leadership of the proletariat over a vast territory spread out over a few lakh square kilometres of area with a war waged by non-proletarian leadership in a small area roughly the size of a big district in India. Moreover, the people’s war we are waging is based on the Maoist principles of guerrilla war. Until the time we reach a decisive stage in our war, we will not fight a positional war in a small area against a superior force that is likely to resort to aerial bombardment if needed. We can fight the mightiest enemy by properly adhering to the principles of guerrilla warfare. We will hit the enemy when and where it is convenient to us, and not when and where he provokes us. His aerial surveys cannot locate the guerrillas who mix up with the people or are in constant mobility. His air sorties too would fall on the wrong targets, may be sometimes on his own men (smiles). It has happened several times in Iraq and Afghanistan. We will even change our battle fatigues and move in the dress of civilians. It will be impossible for the enemy to target us if we adhere to these methods. He will only end up killing civilians and help us in getting more recruits into our guerrilla army. That’s what the salwa judum had done. Thanks to Salwa Judum our guerrilla army has expanded rapidly...
Repression breeds resistance. And the more Chidambaram’s men go about terrorizing people, killing, torturing, raping and creating havoc in the adivasi areas, the more intense and extensive will be the armed resistance of the masses, and the stronger will our army become. This is the logic of historical development. Hence we will utilise the situation created by the enemy’s white terror to organise armed resistance on a far wider and extensive scale than ever before. As I said before, we live among the people and if the enemy destroys the entire population, we are willing to die with them rather than submit to the enemy.
It is the people who make history and not a George Bush or a Manmohan Singh or a Chidambaram. These vultures who prey on the corpses of millions of helpless people will be washed away by the unfolding tsunami of people’s revolts throughout the country.

Q: Then will you never be ready for talks with the government by laying down arms as a pre-condition?

Azad: Never, not even in our dreams we can think of such a step. We have taken up arms for the defence of people’s rights and for achieving their liberation from all types of exploitation and oppression. Laying down arms means a betrayal of the people’s interests.
We may lose some forces in this brutal offensive by the enemy. But you must keep in mind that when the people’s war began we had only a handful of committed cadre. Today it has grown into a mass Party with an All India character and we have a people’s army for the first time in the history of the revolutionary movement in India. Even if we lose some forces we shall rebuild the movement as we are now doing in Andhra Pradesh. You will see the results of our painstaking underground work in the near future...

Q: The government wants to establish its authority over the areas controlled by the Maoists. Chidambaram has been talking of a policy of clear-and-hold or wrest-control-develop or area domination in the major pockets of Maoist control. His argument is there can be no development without recapturing territory from the Maoists. How do you counter this policy?

Azad: Although we have influence over a wider area, our actual control is confined to a small area when compared to the vast geographical area of our country. And this area is witnessing real development... The exploiting classes have absolute control over more than 90 per cent of the country’s geographical area. If at all they wish to reach out to the masses with their so-called reforms, who is preventing them from doing so? Instead of addressing the burning problems of the poor in these vast regions under their absolute control they are talking of recapturing territory from the Maoists.
This policy of clear-and-hold as against the search-and-clear operations or sweeps is a carbon copy of the policy pursued by British imperialists in Malaya and the American imperialists in Vietnam during the 1950s and 1960s. This policy was described at length by Robert Thompson in his book “Defeating Communist Insurgency”. The dual purpose of the clear-and-hold policy is to kill the insurgents and destroy their infrastructure. The key element in restoring state authority and control is the programme of strategic hamlet. The enemy has realised that short-term raids into the guerrilla bases and zones, however large-scale they might be, will not fetch lasting results and the revolutionaries can regroup. Hence, there is an increasing emphasis on clear-and-hold operations with the creation of strategic hamlet as the key. The basic military strategy of the enemy is to deploy as many of his forces as possible in the same area of operation as that of the guerrillas. And the strategic hamlet is a pre-condition for restoring state authority as this ensures the physical and political isolation of the guerrillas from the population. So run the basic principles of this policy of Thompson now pursued by Chidambaram & Co. starting with Lalgarh...
The case of Vietnam is a classic illustration of the total failure of the clear-and-hold policy propounded by Thompson. Although 8000 strategic hamlets were established in just two years, the enemy could not protect them or insulate them from the influence of the Vietcong, and several of these were recaptured by the guerrillas or used for their operations against the enemy forces.
The most important thing to keep in mind is: Guerrilla warfare is precisely developed to hit and run, that is, to hit at the enemy where he is vulnerable, harass the enemy day in and day out, cut off his supplies, create instability and a sense of insecurity among the enemy forces, annihilate them bit by bit, and finally throw them out from the area. Hence if the enemy wants to set up police and army camps in the interior, he will not last long. He will be under constant attack and harassment from our PLGA and the people’s militia. How long can the enemy stay in these malaria-prone, water-scarce, inhospitable regions without any support or co-operation from the people? It will ultimately turn out to be a graveyard for these mercenary forces.
I can confidently say that within a short period, there will be demoralisation and desertion from these repressive forces. We have to wait to see how Chidambaram would deal with these desertions and what measures he would adopt to boost up the morale of his forces. Raman Singh and Vishwa Ranjan have been boosting up the morale of their forces by carrying out massacres of unarmed adivasis as in Singaram, Tongapal, Singanamadugu etc. and claiming that several Maoists were killed by their brave forces.
Chidambaram too has to travel along this beaten path thereby sending us more recruits. And the more areas his forces try to “recapture”, the deeper they will get bogged down in an unending civil war. The one lakh and odd forces that Chidambaram is currently deploying in the Maoist areas cannot control a fraction of the entire region. These forces which spread state terror—the CRPF, BSF, EFR, IRB, CISF, ITBP, NSG, COBRAs and various anti-Naxal special forces and elite commandos like the Greyhounds, STF, SOG, C-60, and so on—and their state-sponsored terrorist gangs like the Salwa Judum, Sendra, TPC, JPC, NSS, Shanti Sena, Tigers and Cobras under various names, will get more and more bogged down and sucked ever deeper into the quicksands of people’s war. Chidambaram’s fond dream can never be fulfilled even if he turns the so-called red corridor literally into a corridor of red with the blood of the adivasis and Maoist revolutionaries by enacting gory bloodbaths.
The reactionary rulers can neither wrest, control nor develop any of the regions but will get embroiled in a war of attrition causing thousands of deaths of innocent adivasis and losing their own forces in huge numbers. They can only destroy the villages through their policy of “kill all, burn all, destroy all” as pursued by their reactionary counterpart Chiang Kai-shek in pre-revolutionary China. The more destruction and havoc these mercenary forces cause the faster our people’s army will grow and our guerilla war will spread to wider regions in the country.
Thanks to Salwa Judum, our war had achieved in four years what it would have otherwise achieved in two decades. Now thanks to Chidambaram, our war will expand to wider areas, mobilise wider masses, and also will gather new momentum and get new dynamism. Every mercenary repressive force, by its very nature and sense of insecurity in rebel-held areas, will end up murdering people and destroying their property. This is what even the mightiest army is doing in Iraq and Afghanistan and getting rapidly alienated from the people.

Q: But the Home Minister says the government is duty-bound to establish the “rule of law”.

Azad: The “rule of law”, huh! Is the Home Minister serious about it? If so, why does he allow his police and the army to abduct people, illegally detain them for days without end, torture them in secret torture chambers in the most brutal manner, and murder them? Why did he permit the SIB of AP to abduct, torture and murder our Central Committee member, Comrade Patel Sudhakar? Why did he not ask his men to produce Comrade Kobad Ghandy in the court within 24 hours after his arrest and instead kept him in illegal detention for four days? Chidambaram revealed how big a liar he is by announcing that Kobad was arrested on the 20th of September and produced in the court within 24 hours. Just ten days ago, two of our comrades Ravi Sharma and Anuradha, were arrested from Jharkhand but the police vehemently denied even after the news was flashed in the media and the AP High Court called for an explanation from the police after a habeas corpus petition was filed. Only after they were completely exposed and all-round pressure was built up, the police produced them in the court on the 14th claiming they were arrested only the previous day. The list of such incidents is endless. As regards the atrocities on innocent people I had already described in some detail.
The so-called “rule of law” bandied about by Manmohan, Chidambaram, Raman Singh, Buddhadeb and others is only an empty phrase that exists on paper. In the eyes of the people it is merely an eyewash and, moreover, is an instrument used to oppress and suppress them. If the “rule of law” is really implemented, the entire corrupt and lawless bureaucracy, police, and the political class would be languishing in jails...

Q: Lastly, what is your Party’s call to the people at large?

Azad: 

We appeal to the people of our country to stand up boldly against this unjust cruel war on the poorest of the poor waged by the Central and State governments in the name of suppressing red terror. The only terror that is terrifying the people of our country is state terror, saffron terror, and the terror of the exploiters and oppressors. 

Violence is a structural feature of our society: it is an inbuilt, inherent characteristic of the existing unjust, authoritarian, hierarchical, oppressive and rotten society. Just think of it! A mere five per cent of the country’s population oppresses and suppresses the remaining 95 per cent through extremely brutal violence reminding us of unthinkable medieval brutalities. All tools for perpetrating violence are monopolised by the ruling classes and their representative state apparatus. The poorest sections of the society, who live a life of extreme misery and destitution, are forced into meek submission to the exploiters as they have no means to fight the violent repressive tools in the hands of the state. It is these hungry and angry masses who form the backbone of our revolution. Their violence is only defensive violence or counter-violence to the eternal state violence. Every peace-loving democratic citizen of this country should realise this truth and defend the revolutionary violence of the oppressed led by the CPI (Maoist).
We must all ask the question: who is spreading terror? Whose policies have led to the suicides of two lakh farmers in just one decade? Who has been spreading insecurity and pushing the vast majority to live under daily fear of hunger and starvation? Who is artificially hoarding essential commodities and terrorising the people? Who is snatching the lands from the adivasis, Dalits, poor and middle peasants and handing them over to a few rich business houses and MNCs? Who is indulging in the massacre of religious minorities with the aim of ethnic cleansing and creating terror among the 20 crore minority communities? Who is setting up vigilante gangs and unleashing a brutal reign of terror, butchering advasis, raping women, destroying property, and displacing over one lakh adivasis in just two districts of Dantewada and Bijapur? Who is abducting Maoists and supporters of revolution, cruelly torturing them and murdering them? Who is a terrorist? And who has given Sonia-Manmohan-Chidambaram clique the right to wage war on the Maoists?
It is time for every Indian to raise these crucial questions and declare boldly: “Stop this brutal war against the people! Not in my name, fascist Chidambaram!” It is the organised resistance of the people and people alone that can stop this brutal war waged by Delhi’s war-mongers—Sonia, Manmohan and Chidambaram—and the warlords in the States, for serving the class interests of their masters. This alone can ensure that the biggest traitors who publicly mortgage the interests of our beloved motherland to their imperialist masters—the Sonia-Manmohan-Chidambaram fascist clique—can never achieve their fond dreams of handing over huge chunks of our land to the imperialist marauders and their comprador agents in India.
Terrorism and “Left-wing extremism” are used by the reactionary ruling classes as a pretext to step up their fascist offensive on the people at large. This is necessary for the reactionary rulers in order to enforce their imperialist-dictated, anti-people, market fundamentalist, policies on a reluctant population.
We also call upon the policemen, who are sent to suppress their brothers and sisters for the benefit of a handful of exploiters and oppressors, to understand the conspiracies of the ruling classes, and appeal to them to desist from opening fire upon our own people. We have nothing against them so long as they cooperate with us and do not harm the people. We also call on them to join the revolutionary ranks or to help us through various means to defeat the cruel war being waged by a handful of hawks against the overwhelming majority of the Indian people.
Finally, we appeal to the media to verify the facts before propagating them and not to be carried away by the outright lies, deliberate distortions, baseless allegations, and the incessant mud-slinging by the police, bureaucrats, political leaders, and some so-called political analysts, who have unleashed a dirty psychological war against the Maoists and the revolutionary movement. The rulers have launched an all-out multi-pronged war and are engaged in a vicious propaganda campaign against us. You know that our Party has been banned and our members and supporters are constantly being hunted. Hence, we have hardly any scope to explain our standpoint to the people of our country and answer the unending baseless allegations against us. Let us not make truth a casualty during this war. We hope the media will provide some democratic space to the other version of the Maoist revolutionaries while leaving the ultimate judgement to the people themselves.

copied from here:
Comrade Azad was attracted to the revolutionary movement while he was studying in the Warangal Regional Engineering College in 1972. Azad who was exceptionally brilliant in his studies had played a dynamic role in the revolutionary movement too. He played a role in the formation of the Radical Students Union (RSU) in 1974. He was elected as the state president of RSU in 1978. He was one of the founders of the All India revolutionary student’s movement and guided it from its inception in 1985. He played a key role in conducting a seminar on Nationality Question in the then Madras city in 1981. Later he took up the responsibility of building the revolutionary movement in Karnataka and build up the Maoist party in this State for the first time. He attracted many comrades like Saketh Rajan into the party. When opportunistic elements tried to split the party in 1985 and in 1991, comrade Azad had played a crucial role in defending party line and keeping it united and strong enough in defeating their opportunist politics. He worked tirelessly for twenty years as a CC member and Politburo member from 1990 till now. We cannot separate Azad’s life from the history of revolutionary movement of the past forty years. Particularly, he played a key role in the ideological, political spheres, party education and running of periodicals. He fulfilled the responsibility of the party spokesperson since three years as ‘Azad’ in the most excellent and exemplary manner. He used his intellect and sharp pen outstandingly in fighting back the ‘War on People’ led by the Manmohan Singh-Sonia-Chidambaram gang. He stood as the powerful voice of the people against the rulers and exploiters. In the development of the party’s political line, in the development of the party, people’s army and mass organizations, in expanding the movement, in the emergence of new democratic power organs and in all the victories won, Azad’s ideological, political work and practice played a key role. Unflinching commitment in face of any odds and during the ebb and flow of the movement, great sacrificing nature, selflessness,simple living, indefatigable work for the revolution and for the interests of the people, astounding study, study of changing phenomena in the society from time to time, being with the people always are some of the great proletarian ideals established by Comrade Azad. Though he is no more, it is undeniable that he would serve as a revolutionary role model to every revolutionary and particularly to the youth, students and intellectuals.