By TCN News,
New Delhi: Civil rights groups and activists have expressed grave concern at and are “shocked by the arrest on 14th June of Dr Nisha Biswas, scientist, Manik Mandal, writer, Kanishka Choudhary, school teacher, and ten other persons by the West Bengal police from Lalgarh area.
“We, the undersigned organizations and individuals, are shocked by the arrest” of these people “by the W Bengal police from Lalgarh area, where they had gone at the request of the local people to investigate human rights violations by police and paramilitary,” civil rights groups said in a statement today.
At the time of their arrest they were charged with violation of Sec 144 (anticipated major public nuisance or damage to public tranquility), a bailable offence. However, when produced in court on 16th June they were charged with several other cases, such as waging war against the state, criminal conspiracy, and unlawful assembly, and remanded to 14 days jail custody.
“We believe that this is not an isolated incident, but part of the repression and reign of terror let loose by the central and state governments over the past few years in the tribal parts of central India to crush dissent, and the accompanying attempts to delegitimize and criminalize all dissent and opposition to its policies,” the statement said.
“On one hand, the state has launched an armed offensive in the forested tribal areas of Chhattisgarh, Orissa and West Bengal, in the name of countering the `Maoist menace’, to actually destroy the numerous resistance movements against forced acquisition of their land for mining and big industry, against displacement from their land and homes and loss of their livelihoods.”
They demanded immediate release of Dr. Nisha Biswas and others arrested along with her and strict measures against the security forces to put an end to the sexual violence being perpetrated by them against women.
Signatories of the statement include AIPWA (Delhi), Alternative Law Forum (Karnataka), Anhad (Delhi), Chhattisgarh Mahila Adhikar Manch, Committee Against Violence On Women –India, Committee for the Protection of Democratic Rights (Maharashtra), Healthwatch Forum (Uttar Pradesh), Jagrit Adivasi Dalit Sangathan (Madhya Pradesh), Madhya Pradesh Mahila Manch, Manasa (Karnataka) and Narmada Bachao Andolan besides individuals including Ajay Kishore Shaw, Anand Bala, Anand Patwardhan, Anu Fern, Asha K., Bishakha Datta and Dr Imrana Qadeer.