Morung Express News
Dimapur | November 1
Expressing unhappiness at the allegations levelled by the DGP Chhattisgarh, OP Rathore in his letter to his counterpart in Nagaland wherein Rathore had described the reports on the atrocities committed by the Naga IRB jawans as nothing but ‘propaganda’ of those working at the behest of the left-wing extremists, Nandini Sundar, on behalf of the Independent Citizens Initiative (ICI) has stated that “if anyone is raising a ‘distasteful controversy’ it is the DGP himself.
“We challenge the DGP to either apologise or prove his statement that we are “over ground frontal organizations/sympathizers” of the Maoists who have started “this vicious and false propaganda campaign to demoralize the Naga IRB in particular and the Naga people in general”. Or else the Nagaland DGP may not be the only one considering “legal action in such matters”, the ICI member stated in a press communiqué issued to The Morung Express.
The ICI pointed out that rather than facing up to the truth, and stopping the serious violations of human rights that are occurring at the hands of the Salwa Judum, the Naga IRB and the CRPF, the Chhattisgarh DGP had chosen to slander all independent groups who have done painstaking work on the ground to bring some of these facts to light, with as much accuracy as possible, under very difficult conditions.
“Our idea was not to target the Naga IRB per se but to draw attention to the outcomes of security interventions in a brutalised atmosphere”, it stated.
Stating that the All India team includes PUCL, PUDR, APDR and others who have a long history of independent fact-finding, including on violations by the Indian Armed Forces in the North East, it pointed out that the Independent Citizens Initiative comprised of BG Verghese, Magsaysay Award Winner for Journalism, 1975, and former Editor of the Hindustan Times and Indian Express, EAS Sarma, Former Secretary to the Government of India, Harivansh, Editor of Jharkahnd’s leading newspaper, Prabhat Khabar, Dr. Ramachandra Guha, one of India’s best known historians, columnists and cricket commentators, Farah Naqvi, leading social activist and writer, and Nandini Sundar, Professor of Sociology. “All of us currently serve on various committees of the Government of India”, Nandini apprised.
Informing that apart from these two reports, there are a number of reports by journalists – from the New York Times, the Guardian, Outlook, Economist, Tehelka, BBC and NDTV which bring out the ongoing violations of human rights and the large scale displacement caused by the Salwa Judum, “surely the DGP cannot accuse them all of being Maoist fronts”.
“Thanks to the Salwa Judum, including Special Police Officers (SPOs) who, according to the DGP are “watchdogs against human rights violations”, all law and order in the district has broken down, and the number of deaths by both security forces and Maoists have gone up exponentially”, it was stated.
The ICI member also welcomed the idea that an independent team of journalists and civil society members from Nagaland visit Chhattisgarh and see things for themselves – and not just through the eyes of the Chhattisgarh police.
