The Uttar Pradesh Government has unleashed severe repression on adivasis and people protesting against the proposed Kanhar Dam in Sonbhadra district of Uttar Pradesh. The project lacks the requisite green clearances, yet it is being built by terrorising villagers who have not given their consent for land acquisition. The agitation is being led by the All India Union of Forest Working People, which is also a constituent of the All India People’s Forum.
On 14th April, the police brutally lathi-charged peaceful protesters at a dharna at the dam site. A Fact Finding team comprising of Kavita Krishnan (Campaign Committee, All India People’s Forum), Abhishek Srivastava (Journalist), Purnima Gupta (Women’s Rights Activist) Deboditya Sinha (Researcher and Petitioner in Kanhar National Green Tribunal case), Priya Pillai (Activist, Mahan Sangarsh Samiti and Greenpeace India), and Om Prakash Singh, CPI(ML), visited the region on 19th and 20th April 2015.
The team met 15 of the injured at the Duddhi district hospital, and found that several men and one woman had head injuries; and all the five women and ten men had severe bruises on thighs, buttocks and back. However, the police and district administration behaved in an extremely high-handed and arbitrary manner with the fact-finding team. At 8.30 at night on 19th April, the team was preparing to halt for the night in Baghadu village that is outside the submergence area. Police drew up in five jeeps accompanied by a man in plain clothes who refused to identify himself, and later falsely claimed to be the SDM of Duddhi but refused to give a name. He is suspected to be a local tehsildar. He ordered police to search the belongings of the team, and warned the women members of the team, “You are women, better leave the place or else you will be dishonoured” (a veiled rape threat). When Debaditya, a team member, intervened, the same man ordered the police to ‘arrest him and jail him as a Naxalite.” The police eventually forced the team to leave the village and spend the night in Duddhi, where they made surreptitious calls to the hotel to pressurise the manager to deny the team rooms to spend the night.
On the morning of the 20th April, the team visited the Duddhi hospital and met the injured. The police tried to prevent them from doing so, claiming that Section 144 was in place – but this was a false claim, since the Duddhi market was bustling with people. In the hospital, it became clear that the injured had not been allowed to meet family members, were deprived of essentials like daatun, change of clothes and were being kept in inhumane conditions. When the team was in the hospital, the policemen mobilised a crowd of around 50-60 people from the bazaar, who raised slogans accusing the team of being ‘anti-development NGOs’ and threatening the team with violence. This mob made a mockery of the claims of the police that Section 144 was in place. The team met with the DM and SP in Robertsganj, seeking to know why leading activists of the anti-dam agitation were banned from entering the district and were being arrested
