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| CURRENT AFFAIRS |
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CHHATTISGARH |
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Activists demand Home Minister’s resignation over Bastar killings
Seek Supreme Court intervention and ex-gratia payment of Rs 25 lakh each for the families of those killed
Prakhar Jain
New Delhi
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Photo: Vijay Pandey |
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Labeling the CRPF’s anti-Naxal operation, in the Silger forests in Bijapur district of Bastar on 27 June as a massacre of innocent tribals, civil society activists, on Monday, demanded the resignation of Home Minister P Chidambaram. Addressing the media, civil society activists Swami Agnivesh, BD Sharma, Rajendra Sachar and Himanshu Kumar said, “Prime Minister Manmohan Singh owes an apology to the tribal community of Chhattisgarh as well as the entire tribal population across the country.”
The activists demanded that either a judicial inquiry be conducted or a Special Investigative Team, that will report to the Supreme Court, be formed to investigate the incident. Swami Agnivesh urged the central government to take “stringent constitutional steps against Chief Minister Raman Singh” for the “unprovoked mass killing,”. He also demanded an ex-gratia payment of Rs 25 lakh each, for the families of those killed in the operation. “This state brutality is to facilitate the capture of region's resources,” alleged BD Sharma, who was an interlocutor during the abduction of Koraput Collector R Vineel Krishna and Sukma Collector Alex Paul Menon.
Speaking to TEHELKA, Agnivesh said that the civil rights activists will try to meet the President and the Prime Minister and urge them to go and meet the villagers. “Tribal rights activists will go to Bijapur in next few days on a fact-finding mission,” he added.
Till then the group has demanded that members of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and Combat Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA) involved in the operation be suspended and a case of murder and under Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribes Atrocities Act be registered against them.
Referring to the inquiry conducted by an Chhattisgarh state Congress party team, Swami Agnivesh said that they have corroborated their claim that it was a “cold blooded mass murder.” Congress is the opposition party in the Bhartiya Janta Party-ruled state. Agnivesh urged Congress president Sonia Gandhi and the general secretary Rahul Gandhi to visit the bereaved families at the earliest.
Prakhar Jain is a Correspondent with Tehelka.
prakhar@tehelka.com
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