Tribals Reject Bail Offer, Demand Withdrawal of False Prosecution

Abductors, allegedly Maoists, may release Jhinna Hikaka, the hostage MLA of ruling party, if persons as per their list that include Chasi Mulia Adibasi Sangha (CMAS) members are released from jails. Government of Orissa agrees to help them if they apply for bail.

But, thousands of tribals congrigated at Kaberibadi of Bandhugaon block, on April 16, have rejected the government suggestion.

Police cases against tribals are false and fabricated and hence be withdrawn, they say. Bail does not bring the end of prosecution. So, the CMAS will not want any tribal to apply for bail, they have declared.

Abduction of Italian in Orissa; Issue Involves Human Rights Not Only of the Foreigner, But Also of Hundreds of the Oriyas

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

The abductors of two Italians – one of whom has already been released – in Kandhamal of Orissa, can be condemned for contravention of human rights in their respect.

But, the three demands the abductors have projected as prerequisite to release of the other one from their hostage raise a question as to whether human rights of greater number of people of Orissa violated by the State, deserve equal attention and care or not.

The soil of Orissa has bathed in blood many a times by police bullets in the name of Naxal encounters. But that the police had coined cases of false encounter to cover up killing in cold blood whosoever was found disadvantageous to misrule, has been established by findings of Courts and Human Rights Commission. To honor the victims’ Human Rights at least posthumously, the abductors have demanded that, the police officials involved in those false encounters be prosecuted against and punished.

To keep people intimidated in order to stop any voice rising against exploitation and misrule, hundreds of them are thrown into jails under charges of being Naxals or their sympathizers. The courts have held that the cases lodged against them were false cases and ordered for their release. Yet the police has kept them under detention. The abductors have demanded that innocent and illiterate people thus victimized by the State be released immediately and compensated.

The third most emphasized demand of theirs is release from jails of the supporters of Naxalism as people have every right to support the political economy they deem most suitable for betterment of the country.

Do these demands not demand attention of human rights activists all over the world who really are honest in their purpose?

Abduction of MLA Jhina Hikaka: Whither are We?

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

“The general public of Koraput District are facing numerous socio-economic hardships due to liquor trade and also dying premature due to consumotion of liquor. So there should be total prohibition in this scheduled District for the improvement and all round development of the masses as well as locality”.

Thus had written Jhina Hikaka, MLE from Laxmipur to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in a letter he had coauthored with other elected representatives of Koraput District and were he to attend the Assembly, he was to stress on this in his debate. This was not acceptable to his party, the ruling party.

In this letter, he had also stressed on preservation of the eco-system of the hill ranges of Mali and Deomali. When this was also not palatable to the ruling party, his participation in the Assembly might possibly have embarassed the government were he to make a mention of this matter.

The letter had also stressed on stoppage of state terror perpitrated on innocent people in the guise of hounding left ultras just to subject the people to waves of intimidation so that they remain too panicked to open their mouths against illadministration. Had he participated in Assembly proceedings, there was possibility of this matter gushing out into debates. That could have embarassed the government.

“We further request you to undertake steps to curtail PC (percentage) to government officials in contract works”, the letter underlined. This is how the letter not only stressed on end of a wrong practice, but also exposed how development projects are being looted by contractors in nexus with authorites as work orders are being placed with the contractors by officials pocketing portions of their profit by means of percentage. This matter could have embarassed the government had Hikaka been present in the Assembly to participate in debates.

Another point stressed in the letter is anathema to Naveen Patnaik’s administration as it prods the Chief Miniter into action for release of the members of Chasi Mulia Sangh, imlicated in false cases by the police and wrongfully kept in jails even after competent courts have acquitted them. Had Hekaka got the opportunity, he could have raised this point to the embarrassment of the CM in real sense.

Is it, hence, possible that his alleged abduction is engineered by the ruling party to prempt any debate on these points in the ongoing session?

Question may arise as to why he alone has been picked up – if at all the ruling party has engineered it – when two other MLAs, Rabi Narayan Nanda of Joypore and Raghuram Podal of Koraput, who are also competent to raise the issue in the Assembly, had also subscribed the letter?

The possible answer lies in the distingishability of Hikaka from others of BJD, as it is he, who alone is close to Chasi Mulia Sangh to the extent of being the factor of BJD’s alliance with it in the Panchayat polls that has, on the basis of this alliance only, given the ruling party the Chair of the Koraput Zilla Parisad.

Whither really are we?

One Italian Released, the Other in Crux of a Question the Government must Answer

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Italian tourist Claudio Colangelo, held hostage since March 14 by Maoists, has been released at the place of his abduction in Kandhamal in the afternoon of March 25, in a hope that the government would understand the positive gesture and stop state terror unleashed on progressive ultras and fulfill the pending promises made during earlier negotiations incorporated in the instant charter of 13 demands.

Release of the other Italian, Paolo Bosusco, would depend on government response to the instant gesture, leader Sabyasachi Panda has said while handing over Claudio to a team of media persons.

To a private TV channel, he, however, has given a reason of zeroing in on the Italians. In the guise of tourists they were trying to track private life style of tribal women and capturing pictures of their natural lustier as if they were commodities for joy of the foreigners. Taking them to hostage was meant to tell them as well as to the world outside, that tribal women of Orissa living in deep forests are not commodities of tourists interest and must not be considered so, Panda has stated.

Paolo, who has not been released, hails from a place in North Italy and has been staying in Puri since 23 years, is a tourist visa holder. He is working under a cover that he has contrived and christened as ‘Orissa trekking and Adventure’ with its office on Chakratirtha Raod. This being a commercial venture, how he is allowed to operate it is a conundrum.

The progressive ultras having taken him to hostage and having not released him with the man he had taken for the “adventure trekking” is a matter that makes the government answerable on how the Italian is allowed and by whom so allowed to operate the “trekking and adventure” venture in stark contravention of visa terms.

A detail investigation into the Italian’s activities in Orissa is now a must for the government.

MALKANGIRI EPISODE IS AN INSTANCE OF ANARCHY THAT HAS ENGULFED ORISSA

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Might be, Malkangiri Collector Sri R. Vineel Krishna, IAS and the Junior Engineer of Kudu-mulu-gumma Block Sri Pabitra Majhi have been abducted by suspected Maoists. But Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s credibility has fallen so low that people fear, this is a drama deliberately being enacted to divert public attention from the pulse scandal, which, besides being a multi-crore rupees scam, has endangered more than a crore of school going children and pregnant women of Orissa because of the slow-poisoning effect of the fungus infested and khesari adulterated Harad dali fed to them under the Midday Meal and Supplementary Nutrition Programs.

The news of this abduction, in fact, has shifted Opposition’s emphasis from the pulse havoc to safety of officials in the field.

Leader of Opposition, Bhupinder Singh has said that their protest over the abduction of the two officials should not be construed as political. The Opposition is deeply worried that due to reduction of administration to anarchy, a Collector-cum-District Magistrate has been hijacked along with a JE. The second largest party in the Opposition – BJP -has, however, alleged that the abduction is a drama created by the Chief Minister and his coteries to divert public attention from the dal scam that has, besides loot of the treasury, endangered more than a crore of human beings,

The situation is so grave that the Assembly proceedings obstructed over the issue beyond management, speaker had to adjourn the House even though the Opposition stance had made the the CM read out a statement making “a sincere appeal for the release of the Collector and the Junior Engineer”.

“As per information received last night, Shri R.Vineel Krishna, IAS, Collector, Malkangiri had gone to Badapada to attend a Jana Samparka Shibira in the cut off area of Balimela reservoir on the 16th February, 2011. From Badapada, he had gone on motor cycle towards Janatapai to inspect some development work. Suspected Maoists have abducted him along with junior engineer Shri Pabitra Majhi of Kudu-mulu-gula Block. A written message has been received through another JE conveying the following demands:
1, All tribal Maoists should be released immediately within 48 hours and 2, no combing operations should be conducted either by Orissa Police or Andhra Pradesh Police. We are constantly monitoring the matter”.

But in this statement to the Assembly the CM seems to have erred. As transpired later, the suspected Maoists have not demanded that “tribal maoists” be released, but have demanded that “innocent tribals taken to custody as Maoists” be immediately released.
There is a vast difference between “tribal Maoists” and “innocent tribals taken to custody as Maoists”.

In the name of controlling Maoist uprising, a systematic attempt is in full speed to subject the highland tribals to horrifying State terror by arresting, torturing and killing by way of encounter, presumably to frighten them so much that they cannot dare to oppose their displacement as and when the soil they live in would be needed for mining or industry.

The conspiracy is so vast that in different districts people are protesting against false branding of apolitical innocent persons as Maoists and fake encounters and arrests perpetrated against them by the police. Protest of the inhabitants of Katama in the district of Gajapati is an instance. In this context, kidnapping of the Malkangiri Collector may be not by Maoists for release of “tribal Maoists”; but may be by tribals or any other sympathetic to them for release of ‘tribals under custody as Maoists’.

The State government has reacted to the abductors’ demand by issuing an order to “stop combing operations till further orders” and by openly requesting Swamy Agnivesh to mediate in the matter. “If requested in writing by the CM, i will mediate, as otherwise it shall carry no meaning”, Agnivesh has told the Press.

If anything, the Malkangiri episode is an instance of anarchy that has engulfed Orissa in the present phase of misrule.