MANITHAM & CHRO JOINTLY STARTED MASS SIGNATURE CAMPAIGN AGAINST DEATH PENALTY TO SAVE 4 TAMILS
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Note : Urgent Appeal launched to-day [26-03-2004] by Mr. Vaiko, MDMK President. On this first day, MANITHAM get more than 1,000 signatures. Kindly take part in this mass campaign.
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- Urgent Appeal
- In English : http://tamilinfoservice.com/manitham/form/petition/1.php
- In Tamil : http://www.tamilinfoservice.com/thamizhmann/2004/march/4.htm

- SIGN On-line Petition : http://tamilinfoservice.com/manitham/form/petition/1.php#SIGN

- ABOLISH DEATH PENALTY! ADOPT HUMAN RIGHTS!!! :
- In English : http://www.tamilinfoservice.com/manitham/faq/3.htm
- In Tamil : http://www.tamilinfoservice.com/manitham/faq/4.htm
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BACK GROUND INFORMATION:

Forest brigand Veerappan allegedly blasted a police convoy near Paalar, a hilly region with thick forests in Tamil Nadu, India, in April 1993, killing 22 police officials and Informers. The police detained 4 persons :
 
1. Mr. Simon (m), aged 37, Ottarathottai
2. Mr. Bilavendran (m), aged 53, Martalli
3. Mr. Gnana Prakasam (m), aged 47, Santhanapalayam
4. Mr. Meesakara Madhiah (m), aged 57

After invoking TADA clauses, Mysore court initially awarded life sentence for them. They filed appeal in the Supreme Court against the life conviction. However, the Supreme Court enhanced the punishment on 29-01-2004 by awarding capital punishment to the four. Speeding-up to implement the verdict, their date of execution by hanging has been fixed on April 16 at Belgham prison in Karnataka.

Meanwhile, a mercy petition was filed on their behalf with the State Governor of Karnataka on 6 March: only the President of India and State Governors have the power to commute death sentences.

We believe that the verdict can be changed to save their lives in the people’s court by mobilizing mass support and awareness against death penalty.

We have already started a mass signature campaign to press Indian government to sign the moratorium on all execution with UN Human Rights Commission.

We both urge all to join in our campaign and to make this collective cause a success.

PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY TO:

POSTAL CONTACTS:

President
His Excellency A J P Abdul Kalam
Office of the President
Rashtrapati Bhavan
New Delhi 110 004
Telegram: President Kalam, Office of the President, New Delhi, India
Fax: + 91 11 2301 7290
Salutation: Your Excellency

COPIES TO:
Governor of Karnataka
Shri T N Chaturvedi
Office of the Governor
Raj Bhavan
Bangalore 560 001
Karnataka
Telegram: Governor Chaturvedi, Office of the Governor, Karnataka,
India
Fax: + 91 80 2225 815

___________
Note : Printed notice are available in English & Tamil and can get from MANITHAM Secretariat through in-person, telephone, email or by post

The Hindu, March 23, 2004, Tuesday

Tribal woman's death kicks up a row

By Our Special Correspondent

KALPETTA, MARCH 22. The tribal department has called for a report on the death of a 36-year-old tribal woman in Kolavally Ambedkar colony in the wake of allegations that the authorities suppressed the information so that the Chief Minister, A. K. Antony, who was in the district to see the impact of drought would not come to know about it.

The woman had died a day before the Chief Minister's visit to Wayanad. It has also been also alleged that the body of the woman was in the colony when the Chief Minister passed through that area on March 19.

Tribal department authorities in Wayanad today denied she did not get proper medical attention. The tribal development officer in Bathery said today the department's `promoter' in the locality whose job it is to monitor the situation in tribal colonies, had taken the tribal woman, Kammatty, to the hospital a number of times.

In spite of medical attention she got, the woman had died the day before the Chief Minister visited the drought-hit region. A tribal department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, today said the Chief Minister was not informed of the death of the woman `because it was felt there was no need to do so'.

However, in the wake of allegations that the matter was suppressed deliberately by the authorities, the Tribal Department 's office in Bathery has asked its `promoter' who is in charge of the Kolavalli tribal colony to submit a report.

Indian Express, March 23, 2004, Tuesday

Superstition’s hand: Yuvraj Singh got on the massage table

Chandresh Narayanan/Express News Service

Lahore, March 23: Cricketers have always been known to be superstitious and this Indian team is no different. On Sunday night as Rahul Dravid and Mohammed Kaif were scripting a

remarkable turnaround, the others in the dressing room were busy positioning themselves in lucky seats.

For example, VVS Laxman was asked not to leave his seat till the match got over. There is a feeling in the team that India win whenever Laxman sits in a particular place and watches the whole match.

In fact, he spent the entire NatWest Trophy final sitting in one position. Yuvraj Singh too had to endure the superstition bug. Soon after his dismissal, Yuvraj got on to the massage table; soon after that, the scoring rate picked up through Mohammed Kaif and Rahul Dravid.

As he was about to get up, he was told to keep lying down. Only when the chase got easier and the target closer was Yuvraj told, ‘‘Utth ja’’.

Skipper Sourav Ganguly and senior pro Sachin Tendulkar too have always been superstitious.

During his captaincy, Sachin would never take off his playing gear even after his dismissal. Sunday was no different as Ganguly and Tendulkar asked media manager Amrit Mathur to stay away from the changing room. Their reasoning: a wicket would fall whenever Mathur was in the room.

Through all this, coach John Wright was calmness personfied. He gets angry but never loses his temper. At Gaddafi Stadium, as the lights gained full effect and India’s chase faltered, he took a walk and came back saying, ‘‘Cool it, guys. We will do it.’’

MANITHAM - Life's Light for Human Rights
Coimbatore - 641 026,Tamil Nadu, India.
www.tamilinfoservice.com/manitham
manitham@...

POTA : Slaves In Draconia  : Ordinary folks—minors, farmers, minorities—fall prey to POTA for no fault of theirs

Terrorism would have been an extravagance for Yogeshwar Tudu, 30, who could barely feed his wife and two children by collecting firewood. That did not stop the police from arresting him under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA). His 'crime': attending a meeting of the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) in a hamlet in Jharkhand.

Says Shashi Bhushan Pathak of the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), Ranchi, "He went to an MCC meeting but had no idea what it meant." Though ultra-left groups reach out to villagers like Tudu routinely, it landed the young man in jail. Once there, he got cerebral malaria and eventually died of it. Meanwhile, his children—aged seven and five—died of starvation. His devastated wife is still trying to figure out what went wrong.

She and 42 others like her—victims or kin of those who have no connection with terrorism but who have suffered at the hands of POTA—will meet in Delhi this weekend for a public hearing to highlight the misuse of the law and its flaws.

Organised by human rights activists and lawyers from different groups—the Human Rights Law Network; People's Watch, Tamil Nadu; POTA Virodhi Jan Manch; India Centre for Human Rights and Law; PUCL; Janhit; and Action Aid—the tribunal will hear depositions from victims, their families, eminent lawyers, jurists, academics and activists. The panel includes Ram Jethmalani; Justice Hosbet Suresh, former judge, Mumbai High Court; K.G. Kannabiran, president, PUCL; and writer-activist Arundhati Roy.

"POTA is rampantly misused by the establishment to muzzle union workers, farmers, Dalits, minorities and ordinary people who are perceived as threats," explains activist lawyer Colin Gonsalves. "It is being used as a tool of preventive detention, so that no individual dares challenge the state's might."

Raja Moinuddin Bhat A journalist from Kashmir, he was tortured in custody for a confession, he later recanted.
Activists say torture and harassment in custody is now routine, since POTA makes confessions before the custodian police officer legally admissible. Also, far less evidence is needed to prosecute under POTA than under other acts and the fact that it is non-bailable makes it fit for misuse. If the police investigate a case completely, they are usually able to prosecute the accused under the Indian Penal Code and do not need POTA, feels Mihir Desai, who has represented several Gujarat riot victims. But the police say increased threat perception has created a need for POTA.

Maybe not if its targets are people like Navjyot Sandhu. Following the Parliament attack on December 13, 2001, she and her husband were arrested for conspiracy under POTA. Her lawyer says, "Either on the day of the arrest or on the day on which the chargesheet was filed six months later there was no material to show her involvement or complicity in any offence, let alone POTA. A pregnant woman was kept in jail, made to deliver there and has been driven to schizophrenia." She was acquitted but the prosecution has appealed to the Supreme Court to punish her for being her husband's wife.

Some glaring cases of POTA gone wrong:

Jharkhand: Seventeen-year-old Ropni Kharia from the state's Gumla district was arrested under POTA last year. A person under POTA is supposed to "threaten the unity, integrity, security and sovereignty of India or strike terror in the people...by using...explosive substances". Here's what Ropni did.
 
As the only woman in the village to have passed high school, she had been trying to educate other village women. Some men didn't like this, and told the police that she was an MCC member. The police searched her home several times but managed to find no incriminating documents. They also beat up her father and other relatives. When she was arrested, it was allegedly with no concrete evidence of her involvement with banned groups like the Naxalites.

Andhra Pradesh: In July 2002, five people were booked under POTA in Yellandu in Khammam district. The main accused was M.D. Sultan, a Naxalite sympathiser. But Firoz, a tailor and his two shop assistants Ramamurthy and Venkhanah (a juvenile, says advocate Shakeel), were also charged—with making camouflage uniforms for People's War guerrillas. The fifth person booked was a registered medical practitioner, Bandi Narendra Kumar, who had allegedly treated PW cadre. These men have now been granted bail but the case against them is still pending. Says Shakeel: "These ordinary people are so frantic that they will not speak to you or be photographed."

G. Prabhakaran, 15Since they couldn’t arrest his father, the police arrested him even though he was a minor.
Tamil Nadu: In November last year, the police, unable to locate Guruswamy, a leader of the rural poor, arrested his son G. Prabhakaran, 15, along with 25 others. The boy was remanded to judicial custody without even checking if he was a minor—his date of birth was May 11, 1987. A sessions judge granted him bail on January 24, 2003, following a radiological examination to determine his age.

Under the Juvenile Justice Act, the police should have released him on bail or entrusted him to an observation home's care. His counsel argued that the initial remand itself was illegal and his confinement along with alleged Naxalite prisoners in the Salem central jail was unlawful.

Maharashtra: In Mumbai, 42 people, all Muslim (one a minor girl), were booked under POTA in relation to last year's bomb blasts. The little girl was booked for six months before charges against her were dropped. Meanwhile, the officers investigating the Ghatkopar blasts face charges of murder and tampering with evidence following the death of accused Khwaja Yunus during interrogation. The police say he absconded but his father's lawyers say he was beaten up in custody for a confession, resulting in his death.

Mohamad Altaf, another Ghatkopar accused, says the police forcibly extracted a false confession. Majid Memon, his lawyer, says Altaf had asked for this confession to be torn up and rewrote his statement. But when produced in court, Altaf found the version he wanted destroyed produced under seal.

UP: In the mining and forest areas of Sonebhadra, bonded labourers are slapped with POTA by feudal lords for asking for their rights. "They brand them Naxals, the rest is taken care of in police custody," says Roma, a local activist. Minors Om Prakash (12) of Robertsganj district and Mallu, 14, were arrested along with Ram Shakal and Suresh in cases of arson, terror and murder. "Most were labourers with the local feudal lord who has a record of being brutal, and has a private jail," reveals Roma.

Gujarat: All 123 accused in the February 27, 2002, Godhra carnage were finally booked under POTA, though the draconian law was not invoked in any case of the post-Godhra killings of Muslims. Worse, the Act was applied in all major subsequent cases where the accused is Muslim. Lawyer Mukul Sinha nails the flaw in the state government's reasoning: "If post-Godhra was 'revenge' and no POTA was invoked, why apply the law on later incidents, which by the government's own admission were also revenge (by Muslims against alleged Hindu atrocities)?

"Interestingly, the conclusions derived by the police in the first chargesheet filed in the Godhra case on May 22, '02, had all it takes to frame charges under POTA, but this was not done initially. The simple reason is there was a volatile atmosphere then and the entire Muslim community had been terrorised by the organised pogrom. Had POTA been invoked then in the Godhra case, the government would have been forced to apply it even in the post-Godhra cases. It was smoothly invoked a year later," says Sinha.

Source : Out Look - http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20040322&fname=Pota+(F)&sid=1
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NGO hears out kids booked under POTA

‘‘What can we do now? I have already lost one brother. The other one, 12-year-old is facing trial. Its difficult, I see little hope.’’ This is just one of the persons speaking at the ‘‘People’s Tribunal’’ hearing complaints against the misuse of POTA by the authorities.

Organised by NGOs working for human rights, the two-day-long tribunal had testimonies from affected people — senior citizens booked wrongly, tortured and later released, and juveniles, from across the country, undergoing POTA trails.

‘‘The objective is oppose and repeal POTA and similar acts and laws that are misused in different states,’’ said Colin Gonsalves, one of the organising members.

The representative states included Maharashtra, with maximum number of POTA accused, Gujarat, with accused who are mostly riot affected, Tamil Nadu, with mass POTA arrests, and UP with politically motivated POTA arrests.

Prabhakaran, 14, who was picked up with his brother Bhagat Singh from the Naxal affected district Dharamgiri, was denied bail thrice but 15 months later was released by the High Court in March 2003.

Omprakash from UP was in Class V when he was picked and lockedup under POTA. Vikas Kumar, his lawyer, said: ‘‘It takes so much time and his elder brother too was killed. He has been charged under heinous crimes. It was difficult to get his bail also.’’ A shy Omprakash only smiles.

A film about a girl who was forcibly confined to Army Hospital in North East was also shown during the two-day event. A video conferencing with other experts from the US about these issues was also organised. A report will be released soon.

The panel of experts who heard these testimonies were from different fields and included former union law minister Ram Jethmalani, writer Arundhati Roy, former NCW chairperson Mohini Giri, human rights activist and former NCW member Syeda Hameed, Justice H. Suresh, Justice D.K. Basu, journalist Praful Bidwai and president of People’s Union for Civil Liberties K.G. Kannabiran. They also spoke about various aspects of the law and its consequences.

Source : http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=78846

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Frontline, Vol. 21, Issue 05, Feb. 28-March 12, 2004

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE TODAS

ANTHONY R. WALKER

On the origins, customs and changing lifestyle of the tribal community in the Nilgiris

http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl2105/stories/20040312000206600.htm

The Indian Express, March 14, 2004, Sunday

RS 1,00,000,000
They Got Your Vote, Left Their Bill

The Delhi High Court wants the list of MPs and former MPs who haven’t paid their official phone bills published in newspapers. The Sunday Express gives it to you free, in the public service

http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=42884&spf=true

The Statesman, March 14, 2004, Sunday

Spiritual triad sweeps MP into trance

Santosh Singh, Statesman News Service

BHOPAL, March 13. — Madhya Pradesh is being swept by a spiritual wave. Call it coincidence or deliberate planning, three renowned religious preachers have delivered their discourses in Bhopal after Miss Uma Bharati took over as the state chief minister.

First, it was the Kanchi Shankaracharya who blessed the CM and her cabinet colleagues. Art of Living fame Ravi Shankar also had his share of glory with Bhopal celebrating Anandostav recently. Finally, it was Mata Amritanandmayi or Amma who left people in Bhopal spellbound with her religious discourses. Amma who came to the city yesterday had great audience in Miss Bharati and her cabinet colleagues and former CM, Mr Digvijay Singh. Amma was accorded honour of a state guest.

Scores of legislators, councillors and Bhopal mayor also sought blessings from Amma. Mata Amritanandmayi blessed several VVIPs by embracing them. Miss Bharati, who was overwhemed with the religious guru’s presence, philosophised that “we are not happy because Amma is here, but because what we become in the company of such a great person”. As Amma talked about total submission to God to fighting the enemy within and fighting terrorism et al, crowds cheered with admiration. After the religious discourses were over, people wondered if the city would have more such religious functions.

Though Mr Digvijay Singh was no less religious, Miss Bharati’s predilection for the pious is unmatchable. The CM sang bhajans at a programme in Ravindra Bhavan recently. As if this was not enough, her loyalist in the cabinet, Mr Kailash Vijayvargiya, also sang some more to advertise his singing prowess.

When the Opposition targets her “religiosity” and excess of cows and cow-based economics, she shoots back saying she would not worry about those with “cowdung fixation”. Though the coinage is not properly explained, it roughly means that the sadhvi CM is not prepared to criticise the swadeshi model.1

The Statesman, March 14, 2004, Sunday

Tribal prisoners yet to get benefit of law

Our Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI, March 13. — At least 3,000 prisoners are still languishing in jails across Andhra’s tribal heartland when they could have been free. Simply because the government forgot to extend the amended CrPC of 1973, which is more lenient than the previous law, to the state’s scheduled and tribal areas.

So even if a tribal has undergone a long period in remand as an undertrial it will not be offset against his final sentence. This beneficial provision doesn’t exist in the CrPC of 1898. So apart from the time spent as an undertrial, tribal prisoners have to serve their full sentences imposed on conviction.
Similarly, under Section 438 of the 1973 Code, a person can apply for anticipatory bail for a non-bailable offence. But not if the person lives in the tribal belt because the 1898 Act has no such provision. There are several other clauses in the old Act that are unfavourable to the accused. As per the old Act, whenever a presiding officer is transferred, trial has to be restarted all over again by recording evidence yet again.

Whereas the 1973 Act provides that the incoming presiding officer can start from where the earlier officer let off.

Again, Section 361 of the 1973 Act provides for special reasons to be recorded in cases where the Probation of Offenders Act and Children Act cannot be invoked. There is no similar clause in the 1898 Act. Moreover in the scheduled areas, proceedings are conducted by executive magistrates. These are promotee offiers and not as conversant with the legal procedure as a magistrate who has been appointed on the basis of his qualifications and experience. The matter came to notice when the state human rights committee drew the apex court’s notice to the state of things. The state government, after a virtual tongue-lashing from the Supreme Court (coram, Khare, CJ, Sinha, Kapadia, JJ) did extend some provisions of the amended CrPC to these scheduled areas in an order passed on March 10, 2004. But not satisfied with this, the apex court at the last hearing of the case on Friday has directed that the state completely withdraw the controversial March 29, 1974, notification excluding these areas from the purview of the amended CrPC.

“Or else we will strike it down,” the court warned. It also asked the amicus curiae in the matter, Mr P.P. Rao to draw up a list of such prisoners so that they could be awarded compensation by the state government.

The court will deal with the matter next on 19 March.

Rediff Special, March 10, 2004, Wednesday

Jharkhand has more POTA detenues than J&K!

George Iype

It is a law that the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government had claimed would be the best solution to tackle terrorist activities in the country.

Ever since the Prevention of Terrorism Act, or POTA as it is better known, came into force in June 2002, the law, along with the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, was hailed as India's boldest initiative to fight terrorists, disband terror outfits, and choke their funding.

But 22 months down the line, human rights activists and Opposition politicians claim that POTA has become more a means to terrorise innocents than to fight terror. Even the Supreme Court of India has observed that the law is being misused in some cases.

Dismissing three appeals on Monday, March 8, by the Tamil Nadu government against the power of the central POTA Review Committee to look into the validity of some detention orders, the apex court said it is the panel's duty to review such detentions.

George Iype and Ehtasham Khan take a long, hard look at the controversial law.

http://in.rediff.com/news/2004/mar/10spec1.htm
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The Rediff Special,March 11, 2004, Thursday

Caught in the POTA trap

George Iype and Ehtasham Khan

Who are those detained under POTA, a law meant to fight terrorism? Are they people who 'threaten the unity, integrity, security or sovereignty of India or strike terror among the people'?  Rediff.com looks at six cases from across the country.

JHARKHAND

It was on November 15, 2000, that the state of Jharkhand came into existence. But India's 28th state, carved out of 18 impoverished districts of Bihar, has achieved a dubious distinction in the last two years: it has the largest number of POTA cases -- 234 (until January 2004).

Worse, a group of human rights activists under the Confederation of Human Rights Organisations, which toured the state recently, estimates that the official figures are wrong. The confederation places the number of POTA arrests in Jharkhand above 300 and claims that some 3,200 people across Jharkhand have been booked under the law in the last 18 months.

http://in.rediff.com/news/2004/mar/11spec1.htm

POTA AS ON DATE : 2004 - Part - II : Caught in the POTA trap

Web : www.tamilinfoservice.com/manitham
Email: manitham@...

Who are those detained under POTA, a law meant to fight terrorism? Are they people who 'threaten the unity, integrity, security or sovereignty of India or strike terror among the people'?

JHARKHAND

It was on November 15, 2000, that the state of Jharkhand came into existence. But India's 28th state, carved out of 18 impoverished districts of Bihar, has achieved a dubious distinction in the last two years: it has the largest number of POTA cases -- 234 (until January 2004).

Worse, a group of human rights activists under the Confederation of Human Rights Organisations, which toured the state recently, estimates that the official figures are wrong. The confederation places the number of POTA arrests in Jharkhand above 300 and claims that some 3,200 people across Jharkhand have been booked under the law in the last 18 months.

Activists say there are teenage girls languishing under POTA in jails across Jharkhand. One such case is that of 14-year-old Mayanti Rajkumari, who left for school on July 9, 2002, and never returned home. Later her father was told that she had been arrested and charged under POTA.

Rajkumari's fate hangs in the balance as government officials and human rights activists debate the issue of 'use and misuse' of POTA in this Naxalite-infested, tribal-dominated state.

Rajkumari's father Etwa, 40, has given up hope of securing his daughter's release. This tribal farmer with five acres of non-irrigated land has neither the resources nor the energy to chase the police and the courts.

A resident of Pandrani village in Gumla district, Rajkumari was a seventh standard student in a government school in her village. The police picked her up while she was on her way back home.

When she did not return till late in the evening, her parents and brothers got worried and began looking for her.

The next morning police informed the family that Rajkumari had been arrested along with 24 others for allegedly planning to attack a dhaba [roadside eatery] 18km away from her school. All of them, including Rajkumari, were booked under POTA. The FIR says Rajkumari was part of a group of '17-18' Maoist Communist Centre extremists.

The police say the group was planning to launch an attack but fled when they reached the spot on being tipped off. But Etwa believes the charges are cooked up. He says his daughter had gone to her grandparents' house in nearby Sisai village after school. It was when she was about to board a bus at Sisai to return home that the police took her into custody.

Etwa, however, has no money to file a petition against his daughter's arrest.

Rajkumari is not alone. Fifteen other tribal women are facing a similar situation elsewhere in Jharkhand.

Human rights activists say there are cases of people who have been granted bail by the courts, but they continue to be in jail because their families do not have the money for their bonds.

Jharkhand also holds the dubious record of having the youngest and oldest prisoners under POTA. The youngest is 12-year-old Gaya Singh; the oldest is 81-ear-old Rajnath Mahto.

The activists say the number of those detained under POTA is growing by the day. Most of these arrests have been made in Ranchi, Hazaribagh, Palamu, Chatra and Gumla districts.

The state government, however, counters that POTA is being used in these areas to curb the Naxalites who dominate large parts of Jharkhand.

VAIKO

He was one of Tamil Nadu's most flamboyant politicians. But for almost 20 months, until February 7, 2004, Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader V Gopalasamy aka Vaiko, a lawyer by training, a post-graduate in economics, and a Member of Parliament, languished in the Vellore central jail.

The J Jayalalithaa government in Tamil Nadu invoked POTA to convince a court to issue a non-bailable warrant for Vaiko's arrest for making a speech in the state on June 29, 2002, supporting Sri Lanka's Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, an organisation banned under the law.

Vaiko, one of the most consistent supporters of the LTTE, had caused a furore in 1989 when, as a DMK member, he had travelled to Sri Lanka illegally, crossing the Palk Straits and meeting LTTE chief V Prabhakaran even as Indian troops were engaged in a bloody war with the rebels.

After his arrest, Vaiko has been accusing Jayalalithaa of using the anti-terror law to intimidate political opponents. He refused to move the special POTA court for his release, and instead challenged his arrest on the grounds that the state government was using POTA for political vendetta. A POTA court in Chennai is yet to deliver a verdict on Vaiko.

The irony is that it was politicians like Vaiko, one of the alliance partners of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, who had wholeheartedly supported the anti-terrorism law. On December 12, 2003, the designated POTA court in Chennai rejected Vaiko's application for permission to participate in the winter session of Parliament.

Vaiko's prolonged detention became an embarrassment for Vajpayee's government, which found itself powerless to assist its ally, because law and order is a state subject. The detention eventually became a point of friction between the NDA and the MDMK and, on December 30 last year, the two MDMK ministers in the government, M Kannappan and Gingee N Ramachandran, resigned.

"Our leader has been in jail for nearly two years now," MDMK Chairman L Ganesan told rediff.com at the time. "But the Vajpayee government has been able to do nothing to free him. So what is the point continuing in government?"

Vaiko eventually secured bail from the designated POTA court at Poonamallee on February 3 and was released four days later after completing all the formalities. The Central POTA Review Committee is also looking into his case now, along with that of Tamil newsmagazine Nakeeran editor R R Gopal and eight associates of Vaiko.

SYED ABDUL REHMAN GEELANI

Syed Abdul Rehman Geelani, 34, a lecturer in Arabic at Delhi University's Zakir Hussain College, was picked up by the Delhi police on December 14, 2001, while he was travelling in a city bus.

The previous day, five terrorists had attacked Parliament.

Geelani was charged under POTA with helping the terrorists in their plan. Three others, including the wife of another accused, were also arrested and indicted in the case under POTA.

On October 29, 2003, Geelani and the woman, Navjot Sandhu alias Afsan Guru, became the first people accused under POTA to be acquitted when the Delhi high court overturned their conviction by the trial court and declared them free. Geelani had been sentenced to death by the trial court. But the high court found no evidence against him, or Guru.

The entire case against Geelani rested on the transcript of a telephone conversation between him and his cousin in Srinagar in which Geelani allegedly gloated over the attack on Parliament. But a division bench of the high court found nothing incriminating in the conversation. 'Even assuming that the prosecution [translation] was correct,' the judges said, 'there was nothing which could incriminate Geelani.'

Geelani's was a unique case in which leading activists like Rajni Kothari, Surender Mohan, Arundhati Roy, Aruna Roy and several others formed a defence committee to fight for the lecturer's release. Former law minister Ram Jethmalani argued Geelani's case in the high court.

A free man once again after spending more than two years in jail, Geelani firmly believes "there is no place for POTA in a civilised society".

JAMMU AND KASHMIR

Ghulam Moinuddin Bhat, who ran a news agency called the Kashmir Press Service and edited an Urdu daily Tameel-e-Irshad in Srinagar, was arrested in May 2003 in Delhi by the special cell of the Delhi police.

Bhat was arrested at midnight near the Moolchand flyover in south Delhi. The police claimed to have seized from him Rs 6.5 lakhs in cash, a Chinese pistol with 16 cartridges, and a watch with a built-in spy camera.

Bhat was indicted under POTA for 'waging war against the State.' The police said he was waiting to receive money from his contacts when he was arrested. The money, police claimed, was used to fund terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir.

Bhat pleaded he was in Delhi for business. His lawyer Zia-ur-Rehman said nothing was recovered from Bhat and there was no witness when he was arrested. He claimed that Bhat had been implicated in the case because he refused to write articles favouring the government.

The case is being tried in Delhi's Patiala House court. Bhat is lodged in Tihar jail.

Bhat's is not a rare case. Several other Kashmiris have been arrested outside Jammu and Kashmir under POTA. According to the government's figures, correct till the end of last year, 181 Kashmiris have so far been arrested under POTA, both within and outside the state. Rights activists say the actual figure could be higher.

Last year, Kashmiri students studying in colleges in Muzaffarnagar, Ghaziabad and Meerut in Uttar Pradesh had accused the police of harassing them in the name of verification of their antecedents. Four of the students were arrested under POTA. The crackdown on Kashmiri students outside their home state stopped only after the media highlighted their plight.

Interestingly, more Kashmiris have become the target of POTA outside their home state. Legal experts say this is because Jammu and Kashmir has the Public Safety Act, which is more draconian than POTA. Under POTA, an accused can be held in custody without charge for six months. But the PSA allows the police and other security forces to keep a person in custody for as long as two years without filing charges. What's more, the government can extend this period further.

Activists, however, admit that POTA has been sparingly used in the state after the government led by Mufti Mohammed Sayeed came to power in 2002.

UTTAR PRADESH

Raghuraj Pratap Singh aka 'Raja Bhaiya,' an independent MLA and 'king' of his constituency, Kunda, in central Uttar Pradesh had helped form and destroy governments in the state. A law unto himself, Singh organised his own courts and delivered verdicts that the villagers accepted with 'respect.'

The man who held Pratapgarh district in his thrall was brought to book only when he dared spearhead a revolt against the erstwhile Bahujan Samaj Party-Bharatiya Janata Party coalition government led by the redoubtable Mayawati.

Singh, his father Udai Pratap Singh, and a relative Akshay Pratap Singh alias Gopalji were arrested in September 2002 under the National Security Act after Raja Bhaiya tried to topple the government in concert with the Samajwadi Party, then in the opposition.

With the father-son duo in jail, Mayawati went about systematically demolishing their fiefdom. In the process, several tales about the family's excesses started coming to the fore. Raghuraj Pratap Singh had 35 criminal cases filed against him, but the law had never dared touch him before. Now, the district police found human skulls on Singh's palace premises. Villagers told the police that he bred crocodiles in an artificial lake on his grounds, and fed those who dared defy him to the reptiles.

On Republic Day 2003, Mayawati slapped POTA on the three men.

On February 3, 2003, Rajender Yadav, one of the main witnesses against Raghuraj Pratap Singh, was shot dead by two assailants. Yadav, head of Baand Mau village, had lodged a complaint against Singh.

Six months later, Mayawati's government fell and Mulayam Singh Yadav took over the state's reins on August 29, 2003. Just 25 minutes after taking charge, the Samajwadi Party boss decreed that all POTA cases slapped on politicians, including on Raghuraj Pratap Singh and his father, would be withdrawn.

BJP leaders, who had earlier supported Mayawati, had also been upset that Raghuraj Pratap Singh, a so-called upper-caste leader who had earlier helped them form a government in the state, had been treated thus. They too welcomed Mulayam Singh's decision.

The Kunda family would have been out ruling their fiefdom again, if it were not for the Supreme Court, which heard a petition challenging the state government's decision and ruled on December 18, 2003, that POTA charges could not be withdrawn like this without prior consent of the central government.

Raghuraj Pratap Singh and his kinsmen continue to remain in Kanpur jail.

A US CITIZEN

Mohammed Yasin Patel, 30, an American national, and his brother-in-law Ashraff Jaffrey, 27, an Indian citizen, were sentenced to seven years in prison by a designated POTA court in Delhi on July 21, 2003.

Patel and Jaffrey were arrested around midnight while pasting what police said were anti-national posters in the campus of the Jamia Millia Islamia University, a predominantly Muslim institution in south Delhi, in September 2002. One of the posters had a fist with India's map in the background. 'Destroy Nationalism, Establish Khilafat' was the slogan on the poster. The posters belonged to the banned Students Islamic Movement of India.

But counsel for the accused claimed they had been picked up from home and the literature seized came from some old magazines in the house. He also pointed out that there was no witness when they were arrested. Patel and Jaffrey lived together in Okhla in south Delhi.

In his verdict, Judge S N Dhingra said Patel believed in an international Islamic order and wanted to destroy Indian nationalism. 'He had chosen India as his workshop,' the judge observed. 'A person who chooses to become an American national and works for the destruction for other countries does not deserve leniency.'

The court said about Jaffrey: 'Despite being an Indian, having been born and brought up in this country and having liberties and freedom of this nation, he has been out to pollute the atmosphere of the country by bringing hatred between communities and propagating the destruction of Indian nationalism and bringing an Islamic order in India.'

Patel shouted 'Allahu Akbar' [god is great] as the sentence was pronounced. "If the Best Bakery case was miscarriage of justice, this verdict is a travesty of justice," he later complained. He was referring to a verdict passed by a Vadodara court acquitting 22 people who were alleged to have torched 12 Muslims during the communal frenzy in the state in 2002.

Patel's family lives in New Jersey in the US. His parents had emigrated to the US a long time ago. But Patel returned at the age of 17 to study in a madrasa (Islamic seminary) in Deoband in western Uttar Pradesh. After obtaining a bachelor's degree, he moved to Delhi where he became associated with SIMI. The outfit was banned in September 2001 for indulging in activities prejudicial to the country's unity and integrity.

After the ban on SIMI, Patel moved to Ahmedabad along with Jaffrey. After the riots in Gujarat in February-March 2002, the two returned to Delhi where they planned to set up a printing press. But police claimed they wanted to revive SIMI's activities.

Patel and Jaffrey are imprisoned in Tihar jail while their appeal is pending in the Delhi high court.

Source : http://in.rediff.com/news/2004/mar/11spec1.htm
-----
POTA AS ON DATE : 2004 [Part - I]

Manitham, March 10, 2004, Wednesday

POTA Diary as on Date : 2004

It is a law that the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government had claimed would be the best solution to tackle terrorist activities in the country.

Ever since the Prevention of Terrorism Act, or POTA as it is better known, came into force in June 2002, the law, along with the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, was hailed as India's boldest initiative to fight terrorists, disband terror outfits, and choke their funding.

But 22 months down the line, human rights activists and Opposition politicians claim that POTA has become more a means to terrorise innocents than to fight terror. Even the Supreme Court of India has observed that the law is being misused in some cases.

Dismissing three appeals on Monday, March 8, by the Tamil Nadu government against the power of the central POTA Review Committee to look into the validity of some detention orders, the apex court said it is the panel's duty to review such detentions.

George Iype and Ehtasham Khan take a long, hard look at the controversial law :

"POTA is a special law meant to deal with terrorists, not ordinary criminals," Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani said recently.

But almost two years after India enacted the controversial Prevention of Terrorism Act, the country's anti-terrorism drive hasn't gone along the lines Advani must have hoped for.

According to the Union home ministry, 702 people have so far been arrested under POTA across the country.

Who are these people who have been detained under a strict law aimed at those who 'threaten the unity, integrity, security or sovereignty of India or to strike terror in the people or any section of the people', a law that allows the detention of suspects for up to six months without trial?

The ministry's records reveal that most of those arrested are poor agricultural workers, Dalits, landless tribals, farmers, students, revolutionaries, Naxalites, and villagers wh! o support Naxalite groups.

The most high-profile detention under POTA has been that of Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader and Member of Parliament V Gopalasamy aka Vaiko. Ironically, Vaiko and his party were vociferous supporters of POTA in Parliament. For his troubles, Vaiko ended up spending nearly 20 months in Vellore central jail in his home state Tamil Nadu.

The home ministry's records say the youngest 'terrorist' arrested under POTA is Gaya Singh, 12, and the oldest is Rajnath Mahato, 81, both from Jharkhand. The Jharkhand government claims that both were arrested for supporting Naxalites.

Jharkhand, India's 28th state carved out of 18 impoverished districts of Bihar in 2000, has achieved a dubious distinction over the last two years: it has seen the largest number of arrests under POTA. According to the Union home ministry, 234 people have been arrested in the state.

Jammu and Kashmir, which has been plagued by terrorism, is second with 181 arrests.

Other states where arrests have been made under POTA are: Gujarat (83), Delhi (44), Maharashtra (42), Tamil Nadu (41), Andhra Pradesh (40), Uttar Pradesh (28), Sikkim (6), and Himachal Pradesh (3). The home ministry has also banned as many as 32 organisations under the law.

But human rights activists who have been following up on POTA cases say the official figures are unreliable. "In fact," says Mukundan C Menon, secretary of the Confederation of Human Rights Organisations, "the Union home ministry does not have the total figure of POTA arrests across the country because many state governments have not sent their figures."

Menon says the tragedy is that it is not just terrorists who are scared of POTA; "it is the country's politicians, farmers, poor labourers, and students who are at the receiving end."

Under section 18 of POTA, the central government can list any group as a terrorist organisation not only for committing acts of terror! ism but also for 'promoting' or 'encouraging' terrorism or terrorist groups. Thus, Vaiko's MDMK and the Pattali Makkal Katchi led by Dr S Ramadoss are liable to be banned for their open support to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka.

If another party or coalition replaces the National Democratic Alliance in New Delhi after the general election, it can similarly unleash POTA on groups like the Bajrang Dal. In that case, many Bajrang Dal, Bharatiya Janata Party and Vishwa Hindu Parishad leaders will also languish in jail like Vaiko.

Communist Party of India General Secretary A B Bardhan argues that the Vajpayee government has achieved 'nothing' with POTA. "We have been asking the government to name the terrorists it has detained," he says. "It is petty criminals and sympathisers of a particular cause that the government has detained under this draconian law."

Bardhan says POTA is very much like its predecessor, the much abused and now lapsed Terrori! st and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, 1985. Under TADA, tens of thousands of politically motivated detentions, acts of torture, and other human rights violations were committed against Muslims, Sikhs, Dalits, trade union activists, and political opponents of the central and state governments in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Home ministry officials, however, say not one complaint of misuse of POTA has been received. A report submitted by the ministry to the Lok Sabha last year pointed out that even Vaiko had not complained.
'Everyone says POTA has been misused against political opponents,' Minister of State for Home Ch Vidyasagar Rao told the House. 'But till today our ministry has not got any complaints.'

MDMK Chairman L Ganesan says the party supported the enactment of POTA because it was deemed a law to fight terrorists. "But now we have realised that it is a law to destroy honest politicians also," he says.

Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi, Congress chief whip in the Lok Sabha, says this is precisely the irony of POTA, that leaders like Vaiko who wholeheartedly supported it are now at the receiving end. The law, he says, will continue to be misused by various state governments because that is the nature of the law.

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CHRO News, March 09, 2004, Tuesday

Mumbai HC Directs DD To Telecast Anand Patwardhan's Film, "Father, Son and Holy War"

The Government-controlled Doordarshan received a setback when the Mumbai High Court today ordered it to telecast noted film-maker Anand Patwrdhan's film, "Father, Son and Holy War".

Written orders on this directive given by a Division Bench, comprising Hon'ble Justices A. P. Shah and S. C. Dharmadhikari, are expected today.

A press note issued by Patwardhan said that this documentary, dealing with the relationship between patriarchy and communal violence in India, had won two National Awards (‘Best Investigative film’and ‘Best film on Social Issues’) in 1995. The film was then submitted for telecast on the national network of Doordarshan (DD). However, when the DD failed to respond for over two years, a writ petition was filed in 1998 asking the High Court to order its telecast on the grounds that DD had arbitrarily violated Patwardhan’s right to Freedom of expression and the public’s right to Information.

After viewing the film and hearing arguments way back in February 2001, the Bombay High Court  directed DD to telecast the film within 6 weeks.
After failing to comply with this order in 6 weeks the DD pleaded the High Court to grant it more time. Although the Court granted two more weeks, the DD opted to file a Special Leave Petition (SLP) in the Supreme Court against the High Court order instead of telecasting the film.

The Supreme Court of India found that the original viewing and selection committee formed by DD was not constituted properly as it had neither independent members nor female members as required under DD's own guidelines.  Thus, in December 2001, the Supreme Court directed the respondents to reconstitute an appropriate committee to review the film within three months.

The DD refused to comply with this apex court order for one year by not taking any action. Finally, under apparent pressure of a contempt of court petition, DD reconstituted a proper screening committee as directed by the Supreme Court. This reconstituted committee unanimously recommended that the film be telecast by DD.

Inexplicably, however, DD still rejected the film under the pretext that Prasar Bharati members did not approve its telecast!

Notably, the Supreme Court disposed of the contempt petition, allowing Patwardhan to approach an appropriate authority if still aggrieved. Accordingly, the plea for DD to telecast ‘Father, Son and Holy War’ was admitted to the Mumbai High Court in 2003 once again.  As before, leading Human Rights lawyer of Mumbai, Advocate P.A. Sebastian, associated with Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights (CPDR), represented Patwardhan.

It is to be recalled that ‘Father, Son and Holy War’ is not the only film which compelled Patwardhan to knock the doors of justice for telecast in DD. Three of his earlier films, which were conferred National Awards by the Government of India, had to face long drawn legal battles to ensure that the Right to Freedom of expression as guaranteed by the Indian Constitution was not denied. In all three cases the courts ruled in Patwardhan’s favour. After years of litigation DD was directed by the courts to screen ‘Bombay Our City’ (completed in 1985 , DD telecast in 1989), ‘In Memory of Friends’ (completed in 1990, DD telecast 1996) and ‘Ram Ke Naam’ (completed in 1992, DD telecast 1997 ).  ‘Father, Son and Holy War’ is next on the anvil of justice.

Says Patwardhan : "History so far has shown that the battle for justice even though delayed, was not denied -- altogether...."

(Anand Patwardhan’s email is: anandpat@...)

NDTV, March 07, 2004, Sunday

Victims of rail tragedy await compensation

Swati Maheshwari

Sunday, March 7, 2004 (Kapurthala): As if the loss of a loved one in a train accident is not enough, families often have to undergo more torture while trying to get compensation.

The concerned authorities don't have the time to appoint judges to decide the compensation.

Double tragedy

The Frontier Mail Express caught fire in May 2003 in Ludhiana. Nearly 40 people were burnt alive and one of them was Balwant Kaur's husband Kashmira Singh.

It's a tragedy Balwant Kaur is forced to revisit each time she follows up the chase for Rs 4 lakh compensation promised by the Railways Ministry.

"My husband was killed. He was the only earning member. I have two young children. I'm just a housewife and I need the money," says Balwant Kaur.

Balwant Kaur like many others has visited the Railway Claims Tribunal in Chandigarh several times in the past year.

More than 400 cases are pending here. The tribunal effectively stopped functioning last September after one of the two-member bench retired.

"When we ask our lawyers, they say that one judge has been transferred and the other has died. So there is no judge. Whenever a judge sits, your case will be decided," says Dalbir Kaur, who lost her husband in a train mishap.

Bureaucratic delay

Appointments of judges in the tribunal are made by the Ministry of Railways in consultation with the principal bench of the tribunal in Delhi, which has not found the time to replace members in the past six months.

Compensation in some cases as old as the Khanna train accident that occurred on January 27, 1998, is yet to be given.

The Ministry of Railways showed more sensitivity in accidents involving premier trains like the Rajdhani where they set up special courts that distributed compensation within 15 days.

For families already struggling to come to terms with their loss, this bureaucratic delay is criminal.

Deccan Herald, March 07, 2004, Sunday

Roshnabad jail under scanner

Sher Singh Rana’s jailbreak has turned the focus on the Roshnabad jail in Uttaranchal.

From SHISHIR PRASHANT

DH News Service, HARDWAR: With attacks on jail premises on the rise in the country, the controversial Roshnabad jail here is in focus again. The jail gained notoriety in the sensational

Phoolan Devi murder case after investigators found that someone else impersonating as prime accused Sher Singh Rana was lodged in the prison cell on the day when the former bandit queen was shot dead on July 25, 2001.

The jail now comes under fresh scrutiny after Rana escaped from the high security Tihar jail raising doubts about its security arrangements especially in the light of the series of attacks on jails in parts of the country. “If Rana can escape from Tihar, then only god can protect the Hardwar jail,” a police official commented.

According to jail officials, there are only 60 security personnel manning the jail premises. Safety standards of the jail, however, say that it requires 127 security personnel. Most of the security personnel are also ill-equipped, they admitted.
There is no watch tower in the Roshanabad jail. And during nights, most of the security guards work under mercury lights only.

Moreover, the jail is overflowing with inmates. There are presently 603 inmates lodged in Roshanabad jail having a capacity to accommodate only 540. In March, 2002, three jail guards were suspended after a top gangster was caught red handed with a mobile and a cash of Rs 5,000. “Although there were reports that women were being supplied inside the jail we have not found any proof so far,” DIG Hardwar Ashok Kumar told Deccan Herald.

In a petition filed before the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Mr J P Pandey, a social activist, also alleged that liquor flows in the jail like water. Citing the case of Sher Singh Rana, Pandey alleged that several jail prisoners including the dreaded criminal Ram Pal had escaped at their will.

Surprisingly, no heads rolled when it was found that one Shravan Kumar, a criminal from Bihar had posed himself as a proxy man in place of Rana at a time when Phoolan Devi was gunned down.

Although the NHRC has issued notices to the Uttaranchal government, the case is still hanging fire.

The Hindustan Times, March 07, 2004, Sunday

POTA detenus move Madras HC for bail
Press Trust of India

Chennai, March 6 : Five persons, including four women, arrested under POTA for over a year, on Saturday moved Madras High Court for bail.

A Division Bench, comprising Justice VS Sirpurkar and Justice FM Ibrahim Kallifulla, issued notice to

the 'Q' branch of the state police on appeals filed by Rita Mary, Satya Mary, Jayanthi and Satya alias Uma(all women) and Thanga Pandian, challenging a designated POTA court's dismissal of their bail applications on February 6 last.

According to the prosecution, the accused, members of Radical Youth League, a front organisation of the banned Peoples' War Group, had entered into a criminal conspiracy on November 24, 2002 to commit acts of terrorism with the intention to 'over-awe' the state government and strike terror in the minds of people to achieve their objectives.

Under the pretext of training in karate, they had formed an unlawful assembly in Utharangari in Dharmapuri and when confronted by the police they had fired at the police party, the chargesheet said.

Their earlier bail applications were dismissed by the designated judge on October 6 last and February 6 last on the ground that they had failed to prove they were not prima facie guilty.

"The reasons given by the special court for dismissing their bail applications are unsound and unsustainable," the applicants said and sought to set aside the designated court's dismissal of their bail pleas and grant them bail.

The Telegraph, March 06, 2004, Saturday

Noose on specialist tightens

OUR CORRESPONDENT

Mumbai, March 5: Bombay High Court has asked the state government to start looking for the “body” of Sayyed Khwaja Yunus, allegedly killed by encounter specialist Sachin Vaze.

The assistant police inspector has been charged with murder.

Yunus, arrested for the bus blast that rocked the city two years ago, mysteriously disappeared three days later. The police claimed that a van carrying him had overturned and Yunus fled in the melee. Vaze was in the van, too.

Yunus’ parents, however, challenged the escape theory and alleged that he was killed in custody.

Majeed Memon, the counsel for his father Sayyed Khwaja Ayub, today said in court Vaze has been charged with murder “and the police have now admitted that Yunus is dead”.

A division bench of Justices S.S. Parkar and Vijaya Kapse Tahilramani has also asked the state CID to arrest the three constables who were in the police van and have now been accused of custodial death.

A co-accused told the court that he had seen Yunus — slapped with the Prevention of Terrorism Act — being beaten up during interrogation till he began to vomit blood. The allegation echoes an anonymous letter by a man claiming to be a crime branch officer. It says Yunus was beaten to death at the Ghatkopar crime intelligence unit lockup on January 6, 2003, a day before he went missing.

Other senior officers gave the go-ahead for a “tough” interrogation and sent Vaze to get something out of Yunus, the letter adds.

Dated March 1 last year and addressed to Justice Parkar, the letter also claims that Vaze, with the help of other crime branch officers, had staged an elaborate drama about Yunus’ escape in Parner near Ahmednagar.

His lifeless body is believed to have been taken to an undisclosed place and burnt. A policeman with a veil around his face then probably posed as Yunus in the police van on its way to Aurangabad.

Vaze will be in police custody till March 9 and the three constables accompanying him — Rajendra Tiwari, Rajaram Nikam and Sunil Desai — have been declared absconding.

The state government has been ordered to submit a report on the CID investigations by March 10. The court had earlier threatened to transfer the case to the CBI if the state police were found wanting.

A relieved and emotional Ayub said his faith in the Indian judiciary has been rekindled. “I will die in peace if my son gets justice. For months, we have been crying and praying that our son be traced. Now that we know he is dead, we can hope that something like this doesn’t happen to any other (person). This is no justice. No one should be punished this way before the court gives a verdict.’’

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CHRO NEWS, February 29, 2004, Sunday

Rights Violation By Central Forces In Manipur

There is a spurt in incidents of rights violations by different wings of security forces in Manipur, according to reports from Imphal. The enormous volume of these State violations even forced the Manipur Human Rights Commission (MHRC) to initiate some urgent actions.

According to the Imphal Free Press, the MHRC directed the state DGP on February 27 to furnish reports on the whereabouts of two persons, Nameirakpam Angangcha Singh (34) and Laishram Biramani (50), arrested by central security forces on February 25 and 27 respectively.

In the first incident, Angangcha’s mother, Nameirakpam Ongbi Maipak Devi of Sagolband Tera Lukram Leirak in Imphal, complaint to MHRC that her son was picked up by “unidentified gunmen suspected to be central security forces” who came in Maruti Gypsies on February 25 night around 11.

The camouflaged gunmen took my son into custody from his house without issuing an arrest memo, nor could I establish their identity due to darkness, the hapless mother informed the MHRC. Although Imphal West Superintendent of Police was intimated, he failed to locate her missing son, the petitioner’s complaint said.

The MHRC directed the state DGP to furnish a detailed report on the issue under Section 12 of Human Rights Protection Act, 1993.

A similar directive was given to the DGP in the second case in which Biramani of Singjamei Bhagyabati Leika was arrested by personnel of 17th Assam Rifles, and stationed at Singjamei Chinga Makha, on the same day around 12 noon.

The complaint moved by Biramani’s wife, Laishram Ongbi Ibetombi Devi, informed MHRC that the Assam Rifles personnel came in a numberless Maruti Gypsy before forcibly picking up her husband from their house. The AR personnel neither disclosed their identity nor issued the demanded arrest memo, the complaint said.

After discussing the issue the MHRC directed the DGP to furnish a detailed report by 10 am on March 1, 2004, Monday.

Rediff News, February 28, 2004, Saturday

Spare my life, Manipur BJP chief begs militants

G Vinayak in Guwahati

In an unprecedented development, a senior politician in Manipur has sought mercy from an underground outfit, underlining the widespread influence of militants in this border state.

President of the Manipur unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party and outgoing MP, Thounaojam Chaoba Singh, had to beg for his life for the second time in a fortnight by issuing an appeal to underground outfit, Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup, which has passed a 'death sentence' on him.

In a lengthy statement in the local media, Chaoba asked KYKL to forgive him for his past mistakes and made a fervent appeal to withdraw the death sentence on humanitarian grounds.

The KYKL had charged Th. Chaoba of acting against the party and the people. Chaoba was given a deadline of February 15 to resign from the BJP.

The KYKL had warned that party workers would be targeted if they failed to remove Chaoba from the BJP. The outfit also banned the BJP from holding meetings, workshops and other election related activities.

In his appeal on Friday, Chaoba said: "I have no alternative but to beg for forgiveness. I should be excused for any past mistakes that I may have committed.

"If any of my past action or deeds had hurt the feelings or sentiments of any communities or peoples including Nagas, Meities, Kukis and Muslims, I may be forgiven."

The reaction of the underground outfit is, however, not known as a yet. As a consequence of the KYKL death threat, heavy security has been provided to the BJP president.

Rediff News/PTi, February 27, 2004 15:50 IST

Seven tribal girls allege rape in UP

Seven tribal girls were allegedly gangraped by armed men at a brick kiln in Kushinagar district of Uttar Pradesh, the police said in Lucknow on Friday.

The girls were working at a brick-kiln at Pipra Jatampur village under Kubersthan police station when they were allegedly raped on Sunday night by bandits.

The incident came to light on Wednesday when a case of rape under section 376 IPC was registered at Kubersthan police station and the victims, aged between eleven and sixteen years, were sent for medical examination, Kushinagar Superintendent of Police Ram Kumar told reporters.

No arrest has been made in the case so far, he said. The alleged bandits, who struck at the makeshift quarters of the tribals from Jharkhand, also ransacked their belongings after beating up the men-folk.

Mumbai Resistance 2004/ILPS Info Bureau, 27 February 2004, Friday

AN APPEAL : Death Sentence to Poor Peasants of Bihar-Jharkhand is Unjustified and Unfair

The recent confirmation by the Supreme Court of the death sentence to four poor and landless peasants of Bihar in two cases related to the Bara incident of 1992, and a similar verdict in the case of others in the Beltu is, we believe, unjustified and unfair.

The Cases

The reasons for this conclusion become clearer when we study the socio economic background to these incidents. In the Bara case, 35 members and supporters of the notorious Swarna Liberation Front (SLF) were killed in a mass demonstration in which hundreds of poor people participated. The SLF was a notorious feudal army that had carried out heinous massacres of nearly a hundred people belonging to the oppressed castes and classes in places like Sawan Bigha (Jahanabad), Rampurchai (Jahanabad), Mein Barsimha (Gaya) and others. Angered by the inaction of the state police of Bihar which directly or indirectly supported this landlord army, the affected people chose the path of mass resistance as their own course of action, which culminated in the Bara incident.

In the case of Beltu also, 14 murderers and rapists, related with a criminal gang, the Gram Raksha Dal were killed by a group of more than hundred people. These criminals had carried out widespread looting, and committed many rapes and murders in Garhwa District and enjoyed police patronage.

The same is true in the Meral case, where some Sunlight Sena (another notorious private army of landlords) members and supporters had been killed by a large group of people. The Sunlight Sena unleashed a reign of terror among the labouring masses of Palamu and Garhwa Districts during the first half of nineties. It organized several massacres
in Teesibar, Nagarutarhi Malbaria, Teendiha, Belhara, Bhagodih Fekendi and other villages, killing about one hundred people. It also got overt and covert support from the police and other sections of the government machinery.

The Background

In the peculiar socio-economic and political situation of Bihar / Jharkhand a number of brutal massacres have been carried out by private armies like Swarn Liberation Front, Sunlight Sena, Ranveer Sena and others in an attempt to terrorise and smash the peasant movements that are demanding land, wages and dignity.

These private armies have organized about 200 gruesome massacres, killing more than 1000 oppressed people since 1990. Most of those killed belonged to Dalit and oppressed backward castes. Ironically none of the killers in these private armies, mainly run by upper caste landlords, have been awarded death punishment by any court. Several cases of massacres, such as Lukshmanpur-Bathe (in which 58 people were killed by Ranveer Sena) have not even come to trial. In other cases the assassins were given ordinary punishments, like jail custody for a few years. Many of them have been released on bail and have again taken an active role in organizing further killings.

The failure of the state to recognize and respect the democratic demands of the people and contain the brutal massacres by these landlord armies has sparked off retaliatory actions by the oppressed people, organized under different banners. The Bara, Beltu and Meral incidents are only reflections of this deeper socio-economic conflict.

The Accused

Veer Kuer Paswan is a 60 yr-old belonging to a Dalit Caste -- Dushadh. He was an agricultural labourer of village Khutbar, P.S. Alipur (Tekari), District Gaya (Bihar). Before his arrest, he was earning his livelihood and supporting his wife and other family members. Now his wife is forced to work as an agricultural labourer. Krishna Mochi (village Bara Bhatbigha, P.S. Alipur, District Gaya) also belongs to a landless Dalit (Chamar) family. Before his arrest, he was working as an agricultural labourer so as to support his wife and 5 children. Now the burden of doing so is being borne by his wife. Dharu Singh belongs to a middle peasant family, and supported his family through cultivating the land. After the death sentence was announced, his younger brother has also gone missing and the entire family is in deep crisis. And Nanhe Lal Mochi (55 yrs.) also belongs to a landless Dalit (Chamar) family. He was supporting his wife, 7 children and other family members by working as an agricultural labourer. Now his wife has to continue with the same job.

The awarding of death sentences by the Trial Court and the confirming of this severe punishment by the Supreme Court (by a thin majority of 2:1) on the basis of the ‘Quality of Evidence’ of a single witness (Police Witness 21 of this case) would appear to be a serious miscarriage of justice.

Based on the above we appeal to the Hon’ble President of India, to save the lives of the four poor peasants who are now facing the gallows and of the other accused who could soon find themselves in a similar situation. We also appeal to him to take up all steps necessary to compel the government of India to initiate a process for the abolition of the death sentence from the Indian Judicial System.

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, PRESS RELEASE
AI Index: ASA 20/003/2004(Public), News Service No: 045, 26 February 2004

India: Gujarat -- Denial of Justice for Victims

On the second anniversary of the massacres in Gujarat (27 February), Amnesty International expresses its solidarity with all the victims of the Godhra and post-Godhra violence and with their families.

The organization reminds the international community that those crimes remain unpunished and appeals for sustained pressure on the Government of India to ensure that justice and reparation are eventually offered to the victims.

"Two years after the massacres took place, most of the victims are still demanding justice, but they are not being heard," Amnesty International said. "Despite the efforts of the human rights community and the scrutiny of the Supreme Court on some of the trials, the Government of Gujarat and elements of the criminal justice system in the state seem to be colluding in denying justice to the victims. This attitude reopens the victims' wounds every day."

The Gujarat police in many cases reportedly failed to record complaints or did it in a defective manner; diluted charges against the accused; omitted their names from complaints, failed to organize identification parades; record witnesses' statements and collect the corroborative evidence necessary to identify the perpetrators. "At the end of this doubtful exercise, half of the more than 4000 complaints filed in the aftermath of the violence had to be unsurprisingly closed by the courts due to lack of evidence presented by the police," the organization said.

The Best Bakery case, first of a few key cases to arrive at trial stage, is a blatant example of how elements of the criminal justice system are often backing each other in the state to ensure impunity for the perpetrators of the violence. It appears that the investigation was defective, the public prosecutor failed to adequately represent the
victims, the witnesses were not protected from threats and the judge ended up mechanically acquitting the accused.

The entire trial was conducted in an atmosphere of hostility to the victims' family. The acquittal verdict was shockingly upheld by the High Court. On that occasion, the legitimate activities of human rights
defenders who supported witnesses were termed "not permissible under the law". The basic principles of fair trial and of due process were turned upside-down in this case and the entire proceedings turned into a farcical exercise.

The hopes that the Supreme Court would reopen avenues of justice by ordering the transfer of the investigations on the Best Bakery and other key cases onto the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) were again shaken in early February when a doubt was cast on the impartiality of this agency.  The former Commissioner of Police of Ahmedabad -identified by eye-witnesses and by fact-finding reports for having failed to protect the victims from their attackers during the massacres - has recently been appointed to the post of Deputy Director of the CBI itself.

"This appointment comes as a further humiliation for the victims and it needs to be urgently reviewed by the Ministry of Home Affairs, to ensure that the credibility of the agency is preserved," Amnesty International added.

Background

Following an attack on a train in Godhra, Gujarat, on 27 February 2002 in which 59 Hindus were killed, violence of unprecedented brutality, targeting the Muslim community, spread in the state and continued in the next three months, leaving more than 2,000 people killed. The state government and police took insufficient action to protect civilians and, in many cases, may have colluded with the attackers and actively participated in the violence.

In June 2003, 21 people accused of the murder of 14 people burned to death in the Best Bakery in Baroda on 1 March 2002, were acquitted. Following the acquittal, key witnesses indicated that they lied in court because they had been threatened with death unless they did so. Following a public outcry, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) carried out an investigation and subsequently filed a petition in the Supreme Court. The petition asked the court to provide protection to witnesses, to ensure a retrial of the case in a court outside Gujarat state and to order the transfer of other ongoing key cases to courts outside Gujarat to ensure fair proceedings. During the proceedings, the Supreme Court severely criticized the state government of Gujarat for failing to provide justice to victims of the communal violence and pointed to possible collusion between the state government and the prosecution in subverting the cause of justice.

Following this criticism, the Gujarat Government sought a retrial of the Best Bakery case. In December, the Gujarat High Court dismissed the
state government's appeal for a retrial on the basis that the prosecution did not produce sufficient evidence. While the judgement blamed police for failing to record complaints in the case, it also accused human rights defenders working to ensure justice of setting up a parallel investigative agency. On 21 February, the Government of Gujarat, under pressure from the Supreme Court itself, finally filed their appeal in the Supreme Court against the High Court judgement. The next expected date of hearing in the case is 27 February.

The Hindu, February 26, 2004, Thursday

Walkout over M.P. `starvation death'

By Our Staff Correspondent

BHOPAL, FEB. 25. Congress members, led by the leader of the Opposition, Jamuna Devi, staged a walk-out and boycotted the day's proceedings in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly here today to protest against an alleged starvation death in Chhindwara district.

There were noisy scenes as Congress members protested and shouted slogans when the Speaker refused permission for a discussion on the reported starvation death and some other issues raised through separate adjournment motions.

Soon after the commencement of the zero hour this morning, the Opposition leader raised the issue of starvation death in the Parasia area of Chhindwara district and demanded an immediate discussion. The Speaker was critical of the manner in which the Congress members were trying to raise the issue and invited them to his chamber for a discussion.

The latter refused to heed the advice and rushed to the well of the House shouting slogans. Addressing newspersons later, Ms. Jamuna Devi said the State Government was running away from a debate in the House.

In a counter offensive, the Chief Minister, Uma Bharti, told reporters that the allegation of starvation death "was only a political stunt". She rejected the demand for a probe saying there had been no such death in Chhindwara.

Asked to respond to the protest rally organised by the Congress here today, Ms. Bharti asked "what else can we expect from those in the Congress." Regarding the violent incidents in Jhabua and Vidisha districts, she said the district administration and police authorities had taken taken swift action to restore normalcy at both places.

The Hindu, February 26, 2004, Thursday

Funds collected for quake relief benefited RSS affiliate: report

By Kalpana Sharma

MUMBAI, FEB. 25. Thousands of pounds raised by a charity based in the United Kingdom have been used to further the aims of the Rashtriya
Swamyamsevak Sangh in India, says an 80-page report prepared by the London-based Awaaz-South Asia Watch Ltd.

The report will be released tomorrow at the House of Lords in London, on the eve of the second anniversary of the Gujarat carnage that began with the Godhra train fire on February 27, 2002.

"In Bad Faith? British Charity and Hindu Extremism" tracks how millions of pounds collected by Sewa International U.K. (SIUK), ostensibly for welfare, education and development projects in India, have been used to promote the objectives of the RSS. SIUK is the fund-raising arm of the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh, the U.K. branch of the RSS. It was established in 1991 and one of its largest fund raising projects was after the Gujarat earthquake in 2001. According to the report, 4.3 million pounds were raised from the British public. The main recipient of the funds in India was Sewa Bharati, an RSS affiliate established in 1979. It runs a network of RSS service project in India, states the report, and some of these overlap with Vidya Bharati, the RSS education and schools network and the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram that works in tribal areas and is accused of involvement in sectarian violence.

While raising funds for the Gujarat earthquake, SIUK claimed that the money would be used for a humanitarian cause. The Awaaz report states that most donors would not have known that SIUK was not a registered charity but was using the charity registration number of the HSS.

Analysing the use of the funds raised in the U.K., the report points out that even though SIUK gave the funds to Sewa Bharati, it did not reveal that the latter was an RSS affiliate. Although SIUK claimed that it had totally funded the reconstruction of ten villages in the earthquake-affected areas of Gujarat, Awaaz found that Sewa Bharati only acknowledged using the funds for six villages. It also found that 31 per cent of the funds "raised in the U.K. in the name of earthquake rehabilitation and reconstruction," roughly half a million pounds, were used by Sewa Bharati for two school projects.

Awaaz has called on the Charity Commissioner in the U.K. to withdraw charity status to the HSS, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad U.K. and Kalyan Ashram Trust because of their link to the Sangh Parivar in India. It argues that it is not looking at the financial reporting procedures of these organisations, or whether their activities in India have benefited individuals. The report, Awaaz states, shows that
"the main purpose of the SIUK is to raise funds in the U.K. for RSS projects in India" and that the "bulk of SIUK efforts are directed to the principal aim of furthering the extremist RSS's goals." Awaaz adds, "It is ironic that the sangh parivar have attacked foreign funding of minority groups when they themselves use such funding to expand their own influence."

The Hindu, February 26, 2004, Thursday

Cola plant declines to implement Cabinet order

By Our Staff Reporter

PALAKKAD, FEB. 25. The Coca-Cola plant at Plachimada in Kerala's Palakkad district has declined to comply with the State Cabinet's order banning it from drawing groundwater from the area till June 15.

Company sources said the bottling unit functioned normally today. The company, on an average, uses 3 lakh to 5 lakh litres of water every day for producing various brands of soft drinks.

The Cabinet's order was served on the company by the District Collector, Sanjeev Kaushik, on Monday night. The company, in its reply today, said that since the matter was sub judice and the High Court had ordered status quo on the matter, it could not comply with the order.

The company authorities said the Government order amounted to contempt of court. The matter is coming up for hearing in the High Court on Thursday.

The Collector said the company's reply had been sent to the Government for further orders.

Perumatty grama panchayat (which falls in Chittur taluk) had cancelled the licence of the company on April 7, 2003 on the plea that the company was `overexploiting' the groundwater in the area and the local people were facing acute water shortage because of this. This was challenged by the company in the High Court.

The court had appointed an expert committee to study the impact of the `overexploitation' of groundwater by the Cola unit. It is learnt that the committee has submitted its preliminary report to the court.

The Government has already declared Palakkad as drought-affected following acute water shortage in several parts of the district including Chittur taluk. Moreover, 7.25 tmc of water due to the Chitturpuzha scheme from Tamil Nadu under the Parambikulam-Aliyar Project (PAP) agreement is yet to flow in. Besides, there is a 30 per cent reduction in rainfall in the area.
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CHRO News, February 26, 2004, Thursday

Malappuram at Bottom in Kerala's flourishing flesh trade : Study

The Muslim-dominated Malappuram district in Malabar region occupy the bottom position in Kerala's flourishing flesh trade.

Quoting a study the PTI reported today that the flesh trade is flourishing in Kerala with more and more men and women taking to sex work to make

easy money, causing concern over the physical and moral health of the society.

The study conducted by Kerala State AIDS Control Society with the help of international agency, TNS Mode, says around 5,500 women and 3,400 men are 'very actively' engaged in sex work in different parts of the state.

The State's capital district, Thiruvananthapuram, tops the list and the Travancore region districts between Thiruvananthapuram and Ernakulam are identified as the largest concentration of sex workers. With Malappuram occupying the bottom position, sex workers are relatively few in the Malabar region districts.

The maximum number of female sex workers are in Thiruvananthapuram district (649), followed by Ernakulam (604), Idukki (580), Kozhikode (514) and Kollam (446), the study says.

The break-up in other districts is : Alappuzha (297), Kannur (226), Kasargod (224), Kottayam (353), Pathanamthitta (443), Thrissur (393), Wayanad (359), Palakkad (295) and Malappuram (162).

The society's programme officer, Joe Joseph, said a five-year study project, 'Partnership in Sexual Health', which would end this year, has noted that sex workers in the God's Own Country carry out operations from lodges, houses and the streets. Unlike in other states, Kerala does not have sex workers based in brothels.

The study, conducted says the 'call girl' system has also become 'frequent' in major towns with students and housewives involved in it in a big way.

The average age of the women involved in sex work is 32. Over 37 per cent are single, while 29 per cent are women deserted by their husbands.

Divorcees constitute 19 per cent, the study says.

It is to be recalled that when locals in a Malappuram village opposed a newly set up flesh trade by two sex workers a few years ago it was countered by a batch of progressive women terming it as "Islamic fundamentalism and Talibanism".

Incidentally, although Kerala tops the list in India in liquor consumption, Malappuram also occupies the lowest position in the state's overall booze trade since it is a taboo for the Islamic faith. Several studies have pointed out that liquor has a direct correlation with the ever increasing crime rates, ranging from road accidents to suicides, in Kerala.
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The Telegraph, February 24, 2004, Tuesday

SC stalls govt forest trespass
- Blow to NDA attempt to woo tribals with gift of 200,000 hectares on election-eve

New Delhi, Feb. 23 (PTI): The Supreme Court today stayed a series of orders passed by the Centre to regularise encroachment on forests and give land rights to tribals by jeopardising over 200,000 hectares of forest.

The stay could take the wind out of the ruling National Democratic Alliance’s move to woo tribals ahead of elections.

A bench comprising Chief Justice V.. Khare and Justices Y.K. Sabharwal and Arijit Passayat passed the order while hearing an application by amicus curiae Harish Salve which objected to an advertisement issued by the Centre. The advertisement detailed the “revolutionary steps taken by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee” in giving land rights to tribals staying in the forests before December 31, 1993.

Objecting to the advertisement, the bench issued a notice to the Centre and said the decisions taken in regard to “dereserving” the forest land in Madhya Pradesh and Tripura “be not implemented”. It asked the government to reply within four weeks.

Salve said the Centre should have approached the court before issuing land rights as the apex court had not even agreed to the environment and forests ministry’s request to permit regularisation of all pre-1980 encroachments on forests.

The bench said: “It is strange that for diversion of forest land for public purposes like building of dams… the government had been approaching the court regularly but not in this case.”

Salve said the ministry had decided in a February 5, 2004 order to regularise all encroachments on forest land up to December 31, 1993 as against the earlier cut-off date of October 25, 1980. The decision included conversion of nearly 200,000 hectares of forest land in Madhya Pradesh and 14,539 hectares in Tripura into revenue land.

Salve said unless the decision was stayed, “no encroachments can be removed”, opening the way for encroachments that would endanger the forests.

Solicitor-general Kirit . Raval urged the court to give the Centre some time to take corrective measures if an error had been made. But the bench refused to do so, saying if decisions were made inoperative for three months nobody would insist on their implementation.

Salve said: “The Moef (ministry)’s recent series of orders will have disastrous consequences to the forests of this country which would lead to serious ecological problems, destroy the life-supporting systems of nature, destroy the hydrology which (will) result in water famines, destroy bio-diversity and food security by adversely affecting the agriculture and also seriously threaten the ecological security of the country.”

NDTV, February 24, 2004, Tuesday

NCW orders probe into nose chopping incident

NDTV Correspondent

Tuesday, February 24, 2004 (New Delhi): The National Commission of Women has ordered an enquiry into an incident in a Haryana where a woman's nose was chopped off to "safeguard" family honour.

NDTV had reported yesterday of an incident in Santnagar village in Haryana's Sirsa district where Kapur Kar's nose was chopped off by a man whose niece was in love with her son.

Nineteen-year-old Kuldeep Kar was in love with Kapur's son Tarsem, who was also Kuldeep’s cousin.

Both the families were against the match. In a fit of anger, Kuldeep's uncle apparently barged into Kapur Kar's house, took out his sword and chopped off her nose.
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BACKGROUNDER:

NDTV, February 23, 2004, Monday

Woman's nose chopped off in Haryana

Nilanjana Bose

Monday, February 23, 2004 (Haryana): A 50-year-old woman in a Haryana village had to face the wrath of a man in the name of family honour.

Kapur Kar's nose was chopped off after her son fell in love with a cousin, a relationship that apparently threatened family pride.

19-year-old Kuldeep Kar was in love with 20-year-old Tarsem Singh, her cousin and also her neighbour. With both families against the match, Kuldeep was forced to get married to another man a week back.

Heinous crime

But facts took an odd turn on Saturday afternoon - Kuldeep's uncle barged into the boy's house and used his sword to cut off the mother's nose.

"I was alone in the house. He came here and chopped off my nose. He said he would kill me," recalls Kapur.

The culprit's brother not only admits to his brother's crime but also boldly adds Kapur deserved to be disfigured.

"She would abuse us all the time. She deserved it. My brother was so angry that he chopped off her nose," says Gurdeep Singh, culprit's brother.

Culprit free

It's an oft repeated incident specially in rural areas - a helpless woman being targetted, in this case because family honour was at stake.

But what makes this incident even more gruesome is the fact that the man who allegedly disfigured Kapur is still roaming free.

The Jeevannagar Police Station in Haryana, though aware of the incident, is yet to make any arrests.

"We can't arrest any one. I don't have any orders to do so," says Raghuvir Singh, Head Constable, Jeevan Nagar Police Station.

While Kapur Kar and her family try to come to terms with this horrific incident, the law has still done nothing to bring the culprit to book.

The incident is a perfect example of how easily people can get away with a gruesome crime in a rural area.