City intellectuals voice concern

KOLKATA, 10 May: Several city based intellectuals today urged the Centre to stop the use of violence in dealing with Maoists in affected areas in the country.
The intellectuals, including Magsaysay award winner, Mahasweta Devi, poet Sankha Ghosh and painter Bivash Chakraborty, urged the Centre to initiate talks with Maoists. The intellectuals while voicing their concerns against Operation Greenhunt apprehended that pursuing the operation can “degenerate into an uncontrollable civil war.”

“Dialogue and not arms is the only way forward : not an option but a compulsion of the situation,” a statement released by these intellectuals said. The statement also expresses regret of the loss of lives of 74 jawans in Dantewada. It also mentions that this loss of lives is a “direct fall out of the government's wrong headed policy of declaring war on the poorest sections of it own people.” The intellectuals urged the Centre to look into issues arising out of the memorandum of understandings (MoUs) signed by the state governments with mining and other industrial houses. These MoUs have led to land grabing and loss of common resources. of these people.

Source: The Statesman 11 May 2010

http://www.thestatesman.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=327609&catid=42

Doctors protest harassment by cops

Statesman News Service
KOLKATA, 4 MAY: Doctors and human rights activists belonging to various organisations will launch a statewide campaign against the alleged harassment of medical practitioners by police in the Maoists dominated districts.
The move comes after the police raided the residence of a doctor at Asansol in Burdwan for allegedly treating some Maoists who got injured in gun battle with the cops in Junglemahal during the past few months.
A section of doctors alleged that several of their colleagues in trouble-torn Junglemahal had to stop practicing fearing arrest for sheltering the Maoists. Some clinics in these three districts were closed down after doctors attached to these faced “harassment” in the hands of police, it was alleged.
"It is a matter of great concern that some medical practitioners in different areas of Midnapore West, Bankura and Bardhamman have been harassed by the police and administration while some others have faced imprisonment,” said Dr Bijon Bera, secretary of the Medical Service Centre, an organisation of medical practitioners.
“In these districts many doctors and health workers have been manhandled by the police on the plea that they had treated some patients who had links with members of the CPI (Maoist). As per medical ethics of our country as also international norms, a doctor has to treat all patients without any prejudice regarding their caste, creed or political association,” Dr Debashis Dutta, a member of another organisation, Peoples Health, said.
In protest against the harassment by the police and administration, the organisations demand that the state government take immediate action to stop such crackdown and punish the cops who have committed atrocities on doctors. According to International Covenant, a lifer and even a war prisoner have the right to have medical treatment. Doctors’ associations have also alleged that family members of some doctors have faced harassment by the police in Junglemahal.

Source: The Statesman 5 May 2010

http://www.thestatesman.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=327028&catid=72

Mahasweta’s allegation

KOLKATA, 4 MAY: Magsaysay award winner Mahasweta Devi today alleged that hired goons were being used by owners for polluting illegal stone quarry units in Birbhum against the innocent tribals who are protesting against pollution. Speaking to the reporters at Press Club, she demanded arrest of the goons operating in the area. 

Source: The Statesman 5 May 2010

http://www.thestatesman.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=327011&catid=42

Money in black & white

Rajinder Puri
THE most damaging weakness of India’s political class is its lack of credibility. Regardless of the truth, people at large are convinced that the entire political class is corrupt. The government covers up corruption cases. The Opposition dares not pursue them even when those in the government are involved. The Scorpene deal, the Koda mining scam, the Raja Spectrum scam, the IPL scam ~ the list of unresolved cases that do, or will, gather dust seems endless. The highest leadership in both the government and the Opposition lacks public credibility. This is because of the curious inertia displayed by these leaders even after circumstances cloud their reputations. The biggest scam currently on the radar is of course the Hassan Ali Khan hawala scam.
Readers will recall this scribe had earlier drawn attention to the Hassan Ali scam and the government’s brazen cover-up to bury the truth. Hassan Ali is the owner of a Pune stud farm. He has 10 known illegal Swiss bank accounts, probably more in other tax havens. His money stashed abroad is astronomical. According to the government’s statement he owed Rs 50,345 crore to the tax department as on 31 March 2009. According to accountants that sum would have escalated to approximately Rs 100,000 crore by the time 2010 was presented. On 20 October 2009 this scribe pointed out how according to Swiss authorities while the Indian government publicly sought help in probing Hassan Ali’s Swiss account, privately it sabotaged the probe by submitting “forged” documents asked for by Switzerland’s Federal Office of Justice. Swiss authorities wanted to help, but Indian authorities withheld proper documentation. Since April 2007 the Indian government has kept mum on the Swiss request for proper documents.
Tax disputes
ON 18 March 2010 this scribe drew attention to Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s statement to the media that the government had recovered the tax dues from Hassan Ali. But the revised estimates for 2009-10 did not accommodate the Rs 100,000 crore due from Hassan Ali in the budget figures. Further, the existing Income Tax Act was amended to waive impediments for tax defaulters like Hassan Ali to approach the Settlement Commission for resolving tax disputes. If Hassan Ali Khan approaches the commission it would enable the government to evade sharing information about Hassan Ali’s undisclosed foreign assets with foreign governments as required by the international tax treaties entered into by the government.
Clearly, Finance Minister Mukherjee is covering up the Hassan Ali probe. Why? The answer may have been given in the Maharashtra Assembly. On 13 April a CD showing Hassan Ali was laid on the table of the House by BJP MLA Devendra Phadnavis. The CD contained Ali’s statement to the police in which he mentioned the names of former Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, Maharashtra Home Minister, RR Patil, and the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary, Ahmed Patel. In the CD, Ali claimed a meeting involving RR Patil and Ahmed Patel at Juhu Centaur Hotel on 11 August 2008 to approve Hasan Gafoor’s name as Mumbai’s police commissioner. Home Minister Patil vehemently denied any association with Ali. “I have never met Ahmed Patel and never spoken to him face to face. The CID will probe if the motive of the CD was to harm Gafoor, me, Ahmed Patel or anybody else”, Patil told the assembly.
The government ordered an inquiry conducted by the Additional Director-General, CID, and the SP, S Yadav. The CD was prepared by the use of spy cam by the Deputy Police Commissioner Ashok Deshbhratar. Predictably, the politicians named have not been questioned. Their denials have been accepted at face value. Instead the CID charged IPS officer Ashok Deshbhratar, who produced the CD, with trying to extort money from Hassan Ali! In its 15-page report the CID stated that Hassan Ali’s confession has been selectively edited. The CID had sent the CD to the forensic lab at Chandigarh. Its report said the audio-visual pieces of interrogation were not inter-linked, but joined together in sequence to appear as if they are part of continuous interrogation. Inter-linked or not, the forensic report does not deny that it was Hassan Ali himself speaking the “disjointed” narrative. CID investigations confirmed that one meeting did take place involving Vilasrao Deshmukh and Ahmed Patel at Juhu Centaur on 15 March 2008. But CID comforted itself with the fact it could not have discussed Gafoor’s appointment because by then he had already been appointed as Mumbai’s Commissioner of Police. Never mind the Police Commissioner’s appointment, how is Hassan Ali’s proximity to Congress politicians including Ahmed Patel, the political secretary of Sonia Gandhi to be explained?
Links with Congress
CIRCUMSTANTIAL evidence reveals, therefore, that Hassan Ali, the nation’s biggest money launderer, is protected by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee. And Hassan Ali has links with senior Congress politicians including the party president’s trusted political secretary. During his interaction with Ali was Ahmed Patel representing himself or his boss, Sonia Gandhi? If he was representing himself why has Sonia Gandhi not sacked him? If he was representing the Congress president how does Sonia Gandhi explain her party’s links with the nation’s biggest money launderer who is being protected by the Finance Minister? Connect the dots and the picture that emerges is not pretty. Either the Congress is so stupid that it deserves to be removed from power, or it is so corrupt that it deserves to be removed from power.
Wittingly or otherwise the BJP until now has served only Hassan Ali’s interests. Publicizing the CD will act as a powerful disincentive for the government to act against Hassan Ali. By not pursuing the matter at the national level the BJP has failed to serve its own interests. Therefore, the BJP is either so corrupt that it deserves to perpetually remain out of power. Or it is so stupid that it deserves to perpetually remain out of power.
Corruption has become so widespread and brazen that it is destroying the foundations of the Indian Republic. India can stand on the roof and watch its neighbour’s house in flames. Why doesn’t it look below its feet to realize that its own house is burning?

Source: The Statesman 5 May 2010

http://www.thestatesman.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=326987&catid=38

Police hunt for doctor who ‘helped’ Maoists

[Police is looking for Dr. Samir Biswas, as they believe "Maoists' received treatment from him. We don't know to the doctor whether it is important to know who the patient is. We also don't know whether it is ethical to deny treatment to "Maoists" or anybody whom doctor doesn't like personally. 

Or, only the "Maoists" don't have the right to receive treatment? Then what should a doctor do? Before start treatment of a patient must the doctor make sure that the patient is not "Maoist"? Then what should a patient do? Before visiting a doctor must the patients visit local police station to receive a non-Maoist certificate? 

By the way, can a doctor deny treatment of anybody say, Sashi Tharoor the former external affair minister just because the doctor doubts his honesty?]

Asansol, April 19: Police swooped down on an Eastern Coalfields colony on the outskirts of Asansol town at two this morning in search of a doctor who had allegedly been treating Maoists, sometimes at home and sometimes deep in the forests of Bengal’s guerrilla turf.

Samir Biswas, 63, who had retired as superintendent of Eastern Coalfields’ main hospital in Asansol, was missing when 16 police jeeps surrounded the bungalow.

Neighbours, some of whom described the bachelor Biswas as the good doctor, said he used to frequently go missing from the quarters in which he lived even three years after retirement.

“We have launched a hunt for him,” said Burdwan superintendent of police R. Rajsekharan.

When the police knocked on the doctor’s door, Susanta, Pal, a help who has been with him for 13 years, opened it. A room-by-room search followed in which cupboards were flung open and mattresses overturned.

Pal was detained and arrested later for allegedly “waging war against state”.

The police claimed to have found Maoist literature, magazines and photographs. “We went to arrest the doctor following specific information about his Maoist links. Biswas used to treat the guerrillas and frequently visit Jungle Mahal,” Rajsekharan said.

Another officer said the police had also found bus and train tickets that suggested Biswas had travelled to Lalgarh, 175km away, and even Chhattisgarh. “In a steel trunk belonging to Susanta, we have found Maoist leaflets that asked people to war against the enemy of the people,” the officer said.

From the quarters, the team led by additional superintendent of police Prasun Banerjee went to Biswas’s ancestral house in Asansol town. His elder brother Subhas, 70, a retired railway employee, and nephew Kinsuk, a mobile phone mechanic, were detained and released later.

This is the first time the police have zeroed in on a qualified doctor for alleged Maoist links after picking up several quacks over the past few months. Officers said the People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities ran at least 20 medical camps in the Lalgarh region, ostensibly for tribal welfare but actually to help wounded guerrillas.

“Biswas was actively involved in the Naxalite movement of the 1970s and had been arrested in 1971,” an Asansol officer said.

In Calcutta, officers of the CID’s Naxalite wing said he was a known Maoist sympathiser. “The CPI (Maoist) is trying to spread its network in the Durgapur-Asansol area by taking the labourers in the region dotted with small industries into confidence. The doctor enjoys the support of local people because he treats people free.”

The police apparently have transcripts of Biswas’s phone conversations that indicate his contacts with Maoists.

The ECL colony at Panchgachhia houses managers, executives, doctors and supervisors. One of Biswas’s neigh-bours, Manas Das, who was woken up by the raid, said: “We had a doctor-patient relationship… never thought he could be linked with Maoists.”

In Chhattisgarh, Dr Binayak Sen spent almost two years in jail for alleged Maoist links. The man credited by many for reaching medicine to some of the country’s poorest was finally granted bail by the Supreme Court last May.

The Trinamul Congress blocked a road for over three hours from 8am today protesting the “police harassment of a good doctor”. “He is a very helpful man. He can’t be a Maoist,” said a youth wing leader.

Source: The Telegraph 20 April 2010

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100420/jsp/bengal/story_12359175.jsp

Abduction of a social activist in Kolkata

[On 5th March, we received this letter written to the NHRC by Abhijnan Sarkar, a student activist from Kolkata. In the letter, he narrates his harrowing experience after being abducted by persons who seem to be personnel of some Indian secret service. We are publishing this in order to bring to light the terror unleashed by state law enforcement agencies on anyone who opposes the policies of the state. Abductions of radical political activists by such agencies have become a routine affair and illegal torture is carried out during such detentions, which are in complete violation of any kind of legal procedures to be followed. The legal system has completely broken down with such acts being carried out with impunity, thereby failing to protect the voices of dissent in a so-called democratic country. We urge all democratic voices to join together to protest such acts of terror. - Ed, www.sanhati.com]

To
Justice G, M, Mathur,
Acting Chairperson
National Human Rights Commission
New Delhi

Date: 18/02/2010

SUBJECT: ABDUCTION BY POLICE IN AN UNLAWFUL WAY

Respected Sir,

I am writing this letter with grave concern about the incident of abduction and sheer coercion that had befallen on me. To let you know about the dread terror situation in West Bengal unleashed by police, I am describing that incident chronologically.

On February 2, 2010, I was heading for New Delhi to attend an interview in Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Pusa, for my research purpose. The interview was to be held on February 4, 2010. I was accompanied by one person who was also journeying to attend the interview (I am not revealing his name for his safety). We were in coach no. S2, in 2323 UP Howrah New Delhi Express.

As the train arrived at Asansol station approximately at 9.30 p.m., seven men wearing civil dress came into the coach S2, pounced on us with fake allegation of robbery, forced us to alight from train. We were baffled to deal the situation. As we were shoved to move in the platform, suddenly one of them snatched my mobile, put my hands behind compellingly and blindfolded me. I smell a rat. I tried to shout for help, but on that moment no one came forward. I was shoved vehemently throughout the platform and hurled into a vehicle just outside the station. At that time, I realized that I was abducted and my companion also faced the same fate. I was sitting in the middle row of a SUV and my companion was in the last row.

Two persons were sitting alongside me, grabbing my hands, and bullying not to make any mess. The vehicle moved for minutes. And then it stopped, one person (I suspect he was the senior officer) replaced the man at my right. Then he started the interrogation (or intimidation!!) and again the vehicle started to move. They told me that they were heading for Ghatsila, Jharkhand.

As the vehicle moved, I was ordered to bend forward; at the gunpoint (They poked a metallic object at my rib). I was covered with a cloth. I was told that Bihar police had done this ‘operation’ to gather some information. They were speaking in Hindi.

Then they started to pelt innumerable no of questions. Most of those were irrelevant to my daily life. First they asked why I was going to Delhi, what is my past etc. As I cleared my position they had started to terrorize. They repeatedly recited that their course of action is different from West Bengal police and something brutal, they are used to abduct and encounter many persons. They would pierce my head with a bullet and leave my body in the jungle, no one would be able to find my corpse. One claimed that he had been an encounter specialist like Nana Patekar in the film ‘Ab Tak Chappan’. As the time gone, they methodically created an immense pressure on me, on my life.

Basically, my life was at their mercy. Blindfolded, without any premonition, I was in the abyss of consternation. With some prior knowledge from books and literature, I was aware of these types of incidents commenced by secret police as well as anxious about our future, about our life. In police custody, murders of innocents are common in our country. We were abducted in a surreptitious manner. The fright of death pervaded my conscience at that time. They had not done anything physically. But psychologically they infused terror into my mind.

Besides that coercion, they repeatedly asked me about Maoist activism in Kolkata and West Bengal. I tried to convey that I am not involved with any banned outfit. Hard of hearing my say they continued to pressurize me. I divulged tits and bits of my movement but was unable to satiate them.

I am involved with some kind of social movement that had broken out in West Bengal 2006 onwards. Like other democratic persons I spoke out against the forceful land acquisition and state terror unleashed by CPI (Marxist) led left front government. I suspect that’s why I was a target of police. In recent times many incidents of coercion by secret police had taken place in West Bengal.

After five or six hours of drive, the vehicle stopped. Again I want to repeat that throughout the journey I was interrogated, coerced, blindfolded. My companion also experienced same kind of ordeal. As the vehicle stopped they told me to come out of the car. Then they ushered us to the 2nd floor of a building. I was groping to find the correct steps. During that time they helped me to go upstairs.

They ordered me to sit on bed. After another period of interrogation I was allowed to lay down on the bed. After this they reminded me to think and reveal everything to them that I know, and assured me if I response positively, they would pay a reward in return. They acted in graceful and compassionate manner to mould me, to be subservient to them. Veiled, blindfolded, I was in a predicament condition, about to spend a night of nightmare. I was also unaware of my companion’s condition.

On the next morning, laying approximately five hours on bed, they had started their interrogation again. In the mean time they also provided the breakfast and tea. They fed me as my eyes were blindfolded.

Throughout the inquisition they repeatedly asked me the same questions seven or eight times. Every time they tried to hit upon the trivial discrepancies and browbeaten me that I was not cooperating. I visited Lalgarh four times, overtly, before the deployment of joint force in month of June 2009. I had to repeat this information seven to eight times (and other in formations also).

On that morning, after three hours approximately, another person came to interrogate me. From their conversations, I perceived that the new comer possessed higher rank, as the others called him ‘sir’. He asked some questions aggressively, in a humiliating tone. He showed me a picture of some students through a laptop (a HP model), among them I could identify a student of JNU, New Delhi. Only that moment they uncovered my eyes. I saw a glimpse of a room containing a table, a sofa set and chairs. Within a few seconds they put the shroud on my eyes.

The person, who supposed to be higher in rank, left the room within two hours. Then again the tedious interrogation had started. Intermittently, the officer advised me to shun the ‘despicable anti-state’ politics and advised to join their hand to return back to ‘mainstream’ life. Throughout this ordeal, I could not endure this kind of long chatter and became a yes-man. I had to pass some personal information like email address and passwords, my friend’s names etc to them as I was dejected, traumatized and perturbed.

They provided the lunch. And the repetition of above-mentioned interrogation had continued. In the mean time, the interrogating officer assured me that I might attend the interview I was heading for. And suddenly he asked me to stand up, to put on shoes. Without any argument I followed them. I did not rely on them and the whole episode was a riddle to me.

They again pushed me in a car. That time I realized that my companion was also pushed into that car. They ordered me not to unfold the covering. As the vehicle moved the interrogating officer gave me two A4 size pages and informed me that those were the air tickets to Delhi. He also told me that the car would leave us to the nearest airport. He threatened not to speak about this whole incident otherwise they would grill me and my friend and our family also. After one hour of drive the vehicle stooped. He ordered us to come out of the vehicle and unfold the covering after five minutes. I came out of the vehicle, unfolded the cover of my eyes within five seconds, and saw a TATA sumo hastily melted away, leaving us behind. I could not note the number of the car. It was dusk, we stood in a desolate by road, beside the International Terminus of Netaji Subhas Airport, Kolkata. They were definitely coming from Kolkata Police Department. The time was 7.25 pm, 3rd February 2010.

My friend and me were spellbound, astounded, after the extrication. Later I came to know that he was hosted in the same house, but in 1st floor. He was also interrogated for some times. He was total innocent (if I was found guilty of doing protest against state terrorism), and both of us faced an experience that is beyond the imagination of us, in this ‘democratic, civilized’ West Bengal.

I want to tell that this incident is mere indication of decrepitude condition in our state. How far the secret police could go, how easily they could flout law that I have experienced blatantly. As a civilian, I may have some view, some critics of policy of state. But this kind of infringement and coercion is unimaginable. I am not a ‘Maoist’, but I am a social activist and continue to be so.

For the sake of freedom of expression and transparency in intelligence network, I am writing this letter. Unfortunately, I am already late to inform about that severe incident. I was traumatized, so far my companion also. That case of abduction had repleted confusion, terror, and nothingness in my mind. To get rid of the plight I am appealing you for justice and demanding assurance to stop this kind of despicable acts of police.

Please accept this letter as complaint and I urge upon you to investigate the mater concerning harassment and mental torture, detention incommunicado and illegal action by the cops.

Source: http://sanhati.com/articles/2188/

Murderous attack on Kissan activists

Attempts to terrorize budding farmers' movement

Defeat Evil designs of anti people fascist forces.

The murderers let lose by the Akali-rulers have struck again. They have enacted another bloody episode. Today, in the late afternoon, a team of BKU (Ekta-Ugrahan) workers, was brutally attacked in village Lodhi Gujjar by Sarabjit Singh & his goons. The team was pasting posters of the 3 day long Dharna at Amritsar by 22 organizations of farmers and agri-labours to be held from 25th to 27th March. Sarabjit Lodhi Gujjar is one of the main accused in the murder of Sh. Sadhu Singh Takhtupura, Organizing Secretary of the BKU. Four BKU members namely- Gurcharan Singh Lakhuwal, Sardool Singh Ramdas, Dalip Singh Thoba, & Balwinder Singh Kuralian, were severely injured in this attack and have ben admitted in Guru Nanak Hospital, Amritsar.

Now with the connivance and patronage of his political masters, Sarabjit Lodhi Gujjar is making efforts to falsely implicate BKU leadership in a false criminal case. After the above incident, when the BKU activists had taken the injured persons to the Hospital, he took their vehicles to his house to claim that he was attacked in his house by BKU leaders.


Lok Morcha Punjab has earlier noted that the murder of Sadhu Singh Takhtupura was part of a well-planned attack by a combination of anti-people forces on the blossoming farmers movement in Majha region. These black forces have been uprooting the poor farmers from their lands; repressing them on the strength of goonda-gangs; maintaining a strangle-hold on their lives through butcher police officers, corrupt revenue officials, Panchayti Raj institutions etc. As the people have no effective mass-organization of theirs, to assert their will, they were rendered helpless. BKU filled this void. It provided the people, especially the farmers, a platform to raise their voice against injustice and repression. When SI Rashpal Singh, the most notorious police officer, murdered a poor farmer in police custody and threw his body in front of his house the villagers accepted his challenge. They came out in the streets, caused traffic jam and forced the authorities to register a murder case against him. At village Saurian the people openly fought against the land grabbers and made them eat a humble pie on the strength of their organization. The black forces then retaliated by murdering Sh. Sadhu Singh Takhtupura. Their aim was to put fear amongst the rising farmers movement. But they failed. The present attack at village Lodhi Gujjar is a continuation of their evil designs against the militant farmers movement.


In a report prepared jointly by the Lok Morcha and Inqlabi Kender Punjab, in the aftermath of the murder of Sh. Sadhu Singh Takhtupura, it was specifically pointed out that the murderers were being openly protected by the Akali rulers of Punjab. None was left in any doubt in this regard, when Veer Singh Lopoke EX-Akali MLA was seated alongside the Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal in a public function attended by Union Home Minister P. Chidambram, despite an FIR having been registered against him on murder charges. The police officials investigating the case refused to record any evidence incriminating Veer Singh Lopoke, Sarabjit, SI Rashpal Singh & Kulwinder Singh Sarpanch Saurian. The game plan was to arrest small fries and save their political masters. The 3-day long Dharna was to force the Govt to act against the real culprits. The attack at Lodhi Gujjar village is a crude attempt to terrorise the BKU activists, which is doomed to fail.

Lodhi Gujjar incident deserves strongest condemnation. Evil designs of anti-people black forces should be defeated through more sweeping and broad based mobilization.

Source: lokmorcha.blogspot.com