The CPI(ML) expresses concern over the attack in Chhattisgarh yesterday, allegedly by CPI(Maoist), that has claimed 27 lives.
This incident is the latest in a spiral of violence in Chhattisgarh. Only one week ago, 8 adivasis including 3 children between the age of 10-15 were killed in CRPF firing in what was first projected as an encounter, and which was later tacitly admitted by the police to have been a massacre of innocents.
The unconstitutional and anti-democratic policies pursued by the Chhattisgarh State Government and Central Government must be held squarely responsible for this spiral of violence. The BJP State Government of Chhattisgarh as well as the Congress-UPA Government were united in backing the private armed outfit Salwa Judum, formed by Congress leader Mahendra Karma, which armed civilians and unleashed massacres, rape, and mass eviction of adivasis. The Salwa Judum has continued by the backdoor in spite of the Supreme Court order declaring it to be completely unconstitutional and ordering it to be disbanded. Salwa Judum SPOs accused of rape have been absorbed in the police force, and police personnel accused of raping adivasi women including Soni Sori have even received gallantry awards.
CPI(ML) holds that militaristic actions of this kind by the Maoists, isolated from democratic movements and political assertion, cannot be justified by the logic of retribution, and are counterproductive in developing any mass resistance to the Government’s policies of corporate plunder and Operation Green Hunt.
The State and Central Governments must not be allowed to make the attack on Congress leaders to be used as a pretext to unleash greater repression on the adivasi people of Bastar. Instead, there must be an immediate scrapping of Operation Green Hunt, withdrawal of former SPOs from the Chhattisgarh police force, and criminal action initiated against all those, including police personnel and Salwa Judum cadre, who stand accused of rape and killing.
Prabhat Kumar
for
CPI(ML) Central Committee
