The West Bengal police has filed criminal cases against Aparna Sen, Saoli Mitra, Kaushik Sen, Joy Goswami and others - the artistes and intellectuals from Kolkata who had visited Lalgarh, talked to Chhatradhar Mahato in Pathardanga and issued a call for ceasefire to both the state administration and the Maoists till the scheduled talk between the state and the PCAPA in the wake of the Joint Force launching its armed operations and reoccupying the Lalgarh Police Station, for breach of Sec. 144 of the Cr. PC promulgated in Lalgarh. Though they had visited after informing the Chief Secretary.
And here is a more recent case of actual detention: 'Eight human rights activists detained in Midnapore' at http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/002200906271980.htm Reportedly the arrests have been made under arrested under Sec. 151 of the Cr PC. (They were subsequently taken to Kolkata and let off.) It appears that now the police has become even more proactive. Evidently the situation has appreciably deteriorated since the middle of the month. Also relevant is the fact that the corpse of one Salku Soren, a landless labourer and a CPI(M) activist who had been killed by the Maoists among others, was made to rot for days in the open for all to see as an example. On the face of it, that palyed a major role in paving the ground for armed intervention by the state triggering deep revulsions and facilitating knocking off the rather formidable moral ballast that had come up in the wake of Nandigarm. The Lalgarh resistance had held for seven long months and the state desisted from intervening till the Maoists came overground, claimed the authorship of the resistance, proudly declared before the TV cameras that they had tried to kill the Chief Minister and do it again with guns slinging on the back for good effect and went on the violent spree including gory killings. The resistance which had held for seven moths, crashed in less than seven days. Not only the considerable achievement of Nandigarm in immobilising the state has been completely nullified virtually in one single stroke, the clock has been put even further back. Now, the state is in superactive mode. There are reports of widespread police brutalities amid full scale armed operations. The most disturbing is that despite strong protests from the alliance partners and also from within the party, the Chief Minister is dead set on making the use of the UAPA 2008. Radically breaking off with the norms set till now. >From the human rights perspective, this is extremely worrisome and disturbing. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send email to greenyouth@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to greenyouth+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
