Jharkhand’s BJP Govt. led by Arjun Munda is receiving nationwide condemnation and protests for framing charges before a fast track court in Ranchi against CPI(ML) General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya and four other activists, Om Prakash, Harsh Narayan Singh and Sita Ram Singh as well as Motu Oraon, a labouring tribal youth who was a bystander, under Sections 147, 114, 148, 149, 353, 323, 324, 307, 188, 431 of the IPC and Section 17 of the CLA (Criminal Law Amendment Act). This was done for leading a march to the Assembly of the newly formed Jharkhand State on March 1, 2001 to protest against a spate of incidents of police brutality, including the infamous and unprovoked firing on Muslim youth at Doranda and on tribals at Tapkara protesting displacement by the Koel Karo Dam.
While a three-day long Mahadharna was started in Ranchi from 13 June which was attended by thousands of people from various parts of Jharkhand, many left and democratic organisations and prominent persons have condemned this assault on people’s democratic right to protest.
Five political parties in Bihar - CPI, CPI(M), Lok Janshakti Party, Samajwadi Party and CPI(ML) - have jointly sent a letter of protest to Jharkhand Chief Minister Arjun Munda demanding immediate withdrawal of falsely imposed cases. The letter says that this act of Jharkhand Govt. is an attack on political freedom and democratic rights and such an incident is unprecedented in Indian politics. The letter further says that the violation of human rights has become the norm of the day under BJP rule in Jharkhand. Black laws like POTA were rampantly used there against innocent people and, besides police atrocities, there have been many incidents of state sponsored violence. The killings of Senior Advocate and civil rights activist Prashant Sahay and CPI(ML) leader and MLA Mahendra Singh were also indicative of this bitter fact. Even the CBI team probing into the murder of Comrade Mahendra Singh held police responsible for violating many procedures which should have been followed by police after the killing. And the Jharkhand Govt. is still protecting one of the main accused in this murder, Dipak Verma, SP in Giridih at the time of this killing.
The Mahadharna in Ranchi was led by Party’s Polit Bureau member Swadesh Bhattacharya, Central Committee member and Editor of Samkalin Janmat, Ramji Rai, State Secretary Subhendu Sen, Rajaram and Janardan Prasad. Eminent intellectual and convener of Jharkhand Jan Sanskrit Manch Dr. BP Kesri, Journalist Faisal Anurag, Adivasi Adhikar Morcha leader Dayamani Barla, Sashibhushan Pathak of PUCL, Aloka of IPTA, journalist Javier Kujoor and many other social and political activists also joined and addressed the dharna.
The speakers condemned the Arjun Munda Govt. for using state repression as a weapon to suppress the democratic protests in the state. They condemned the state government for its failure to punish the killers of Doranda and Tapkara even after so many years while those who protested against these killings are now being subjected to face conviction under the charge of attempt to murder. The promotion given to Dipak Verma, one of the main accused in the killing of Comrade Mahendra Singh, and his exclusion from the ambit of CBI inquiry also exposes Jharkhand Govt.’s attitude towards people’s movements and their leaders. They emphasised the need to develop more intense struggles against anti-people policies of the government and to develop effective resistance to force the govt. to refrain from taking such repressive measures.
This statewide campaign against state repression was started in Jharkhand on June 9 with a dharna at Daltonganj in Palamu district. On June 10, protests programmes were held in Latehar, Garhwa, Bokaro, Giridih, Devghar, Dhanbad, Hazaribagh, Gumla, and Jamshedpur. Dharna were also held in Bundu, Tamar, and Rahe in Ranchi district.
A large number of intellectuals, cultural personalities, social and political activists and prominent citizens in Bihar have also opposed this step of the Jharkhand govt. and demanded the withdrawal of the charges framed against CPI(ML) leaders. Sarvoday leader Rammurty, Ex-DGP DP Ojha, Convener of Lokpaksha Shankar Raman, Priyadarshi of Jan Mukti Sangharsh Vahini, JD(U) leader Laxmi Sahu, Raghupati and Akhtar Husain of Sampurna Kranti Manch, Gorelal Manishi of Azadi Bachao Andolan, Arshad Azmal, Bihar President of AIPWA Meena Tiwary, General Secretary of Revolutionary Youth Association Kamlesh Sharma, State Vice President of PUCL Kishori Das and many others have sent letters to Arjun Munda in this context. Prof. Shiv Jatan Thakur, ex-member of Bihar Public Service Commission, Member of Patna University’s Senate Prof. Bharti S. Kumar, Prof. Santosh Kumar, Prof. Devendra Kumar, Prof. OP Jaiswal, Prof. Maya Bhattacharya, Prof. BN Singh, Prof. Daisy Narayan and senior advocates Indu Bhushan Singh, Vasant Kumar Chaudhary, Ratneshwar Prasad Singh, Bhupendra Kumar, Shruti Muni, Yogesh Chandra Sharma, Ibrahim Kadir, Brajesh Kumar and Ujjawal Kumar have also sent similar letters. Many cultural personalities including Arun Kamal, Ravindra Kalia, Jaiprakash Kardam, Madhukar Singh, Rajendra Prasad Singh, Ramji Rai, Ramdhari Singh Diwakar, Shekhar, Naren, Awadesh Preet, Salil Sudhakar, Anant Kumar Singh, Gaurinath, Pratibha Verma, Sanjay Kundan, Gyandev Mani Tripathi, and many artists associated with IPTA, Theatre Unit, Dastak, Hirawal, Abhiyan, Prerna, Bhangima, Punascha, etc. have also requested Jharkhand Chief Minister to withdraw charges. A protest March will also be held in Patna on June 15 which will be attended by various left and democratic forces and personalities.
Besides, a number of persons from various parts of the country have signed a petition to this effect. They include Journalist Latha Jishnu, E. Deenadayalan of Samarthan Trust, Anil Nauriya, writer and Human Rights Activist in Tamil Nadu S,V.Rajadurai, Film Maker Anand Patwardhan, Jai Sen, I.K.Shukla, Yogendra Yadav, Amita Bhaduri, Hardeep Singh, and many others. An online petition has also been signed by nearly 300 prominent intellectuals and Left leaders and activists across the world. Alex Callinicos, Professor of European Studies in King’s College, London, Roseline Vachetta, Former Member of the European Parliament, Spokesperson for the Ligue communiste revolutionnaire (France), Alain Krivine, Former Member of the European Parliament and Spokesperson for the Ligue communiste revolutionnaire (France), Pierre Rousset, Président, Europe solidaire sans frontières (ESSF), France, John Fernandes, Dr. Kasturi Sen, Pierre Beaudet, Lionel Bopage, Peter Boyle and Sue Bolten, Secretary and Assistant National Secretary respectively of Democratic Socialist Perspective in Australia, Nirmala Rajasingam, Amrit Wilson and Sarbajit Johal of South Asia Solidarity Group in London, Nurdin Abdul Rahman of Achehnese Community in Australia, Dr. Gautam Appa from London School of Economics, Yuri Dergunov, a journalist from Ukraine, Fred Fuentes of Resistance - Socialist Youth Organisation of Australia, Arnljot Ask, international secretary of AKP, Norway and People’s Democratic Party (PRD), Indonesia, are some of the signatories on this petition. Mukta Manohar and Medha Thatte of Lal Nishan Party (Leninist), J. Sri Raman, Bela Bhatia, Dunu Roy, Hari Sharma, Nripen Bandopadhyay, Pankaj Bisht, Mukul Dubey, Madhuchhanda Karlekar, Dr. Pritam Singh, Subhash Gatade, Editor, Kriti Sanskriti Sandhan, and Kunal Chattopadhyay have also signed it.
In Delhi, a public meeting will be organised on June 15 on ’Growing Trends of Assault on ‘Right to Assembly and Protest’ with special reference to BJP-led Jharkhand Government’s this conspiracy.
* From ML Update, a CPI(ML) Weekly News Magazine, Vol. 9, No. 24, 13-19 June 2006.
Invitation to participate in the Public Meeting on Increasing Assaults on ’Right to Assembly and Protest’
(With special reference to BJP-led Jharkhand Government’s
conspiracy to frame CPI(ML) General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya under patently false charges,including 307 of IPC and Section 17 of the draconian Criminal Law Amendment Act)
Venue:
Gandhi Peace Foundation,
Deendayal Upadhyay Marg,
near ITO, New Delhi
Time: 2 P.M.
Date: June 15, 2006
Amongst those who have confirmed their participation include:
Justice Sachar, Arundhati Roy, Gautam Navalakha, Uma Chakravarty, Sumit Chakravarty, Sukumar Muralidharan, Tripta Wahi, ND Pancholi, Lata Jishnu, Jawed Naqvi.
Dear friend,
As you may be aware the Jharkhand government is desperately trying to frame Comrade Dipankar Bhattacharya, General Secretary of CPI(ML), and other party activists under patently false charges including 307 of IPC and Section 17 of CLA. And that too for leading a peaceful march to the Assembly(on 1st march 2001) to protest a spate of incidents involving police brutality, including the infamous and unprovoked firing on Muslim youth at Doranda and the firing on tribals at Tapkara for protesting displacement by the Koel Karo Dam.
The charges against the CPI(ML) leaders and activists- Comrade Dipankar Bhattacharya (General Secretary, CPIML), Om Prakash, Harsh Narayan Singh and Sita Ram Singh as well as Motu Oraon, a labouring tribal youth who was a bystander, under Section 147, 114, 148, 149, 353, 323, 324, 307, 188, 431 of the IPC and Section 17 of the CLA (Criminal Law Amendment Act)- is before a fast-track court in Ranchi. The CLA, you may be aware is incidentally a draconian act (which came into force between TADA and POTA), which, despite being repealed, nevertheless continues to be frequently invoked in Jharkhand.
The CPI-ML leaders are being witch-hunted and greeted with repression in Jharkhand for a mass act of public political protest. The Assembly March was brutally lathicharged; newspapers carried photographs of dozens of CPI(ML) activists lying bloody and battered, and of the police dragging CPI(ML) General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya and late Comrade Mahendra Singh (CPIML’s lone MLA in the Jharkhand Assembly) by their clothes and hair. Comrade Dipankar was detained in judicial custody in jail for a week, and false charges were slapped against the arrested activists. Now, charges have been framed and the Jharkhand Government is pursuing these false cases assiduously and in a great hurry to clamp political dissent. Notably, the Jharkhand Government has dropped the cases against several activists of the Jharkhand movement, and even against leaders of the Ram Janmabhoomi agitation.
The slogans of ‘Punish the police officials guilty for Tapkara firing’, ‘Gherao the Assembly, Punish the Killers’ and ‘Scrap the Koel Karo Project’ on the banners and placards are being cited by the police, while claiming that Comrade Dipankar and other activists were ‘inciting’ protestors for a murderous attack on police and Assembly!
If the Jharkhand Government allows the police to punish and persecute leaders engaged in mass democratic protests, there will be no democratic means left to protest incidents like the police firing at Tapkara and Doranda. The path for a police State will be set in Jharkhand. For the General Secretary of a recognised political party, leading a political protest to voice certain issues before an elected Assembly, to be charged with abetting attempted murder, is probably unprecedented in the annals of Indian politics. The only comparable precedent can be found in the arrests of political leaders during emergency.
There is an urgent need to come together and safeguard the democratic rights enshrined in the Constitution if we have to ensure that people protesting against the violation of their fundamental rights are not shot down and those who lead the voice of concern are not witch-hunted and jailed in Jharkhand.
Yours in solidarity,
Prabhat Kumar
Central Committee,
CPI (ML)
COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MARXIST-LENINIST) (LIBERATION)
Central Office:
U-90, Shakarpur,Delhi-110092
Phone: 011 -22521067
Fax: 011 - 22518248;
E-mail: mail cpiml.org : cpiml.lib bol.net.in
Website: www.cpiml.org