http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NofFZxnfK7w

CAUGHT ON CAMERA - Chhattisgarh police official admits scripting case
against tribals

Uploaded by tehelkatv <http://www.youtube.com/user/tehelkatv> on Sep 30,
2011

Caught on camera - A Chhattisgarh police official admits to staging an
arrest and setting up a case against the tribals Soni Sori and Lingaram
Kodopi.

The story of the Dantewada-based school teacher Soni Sori and her journalist
nephew Lingaram Kodopi in many ways encapsulates the complex conflict that
continues in Chattisgarh below the news-radar of the national media. The
tribals increasingly get caught between the the security forces of the
Indian State and the Maoists.
Lingaram Kodopi is a young boy from Chattisgarh, who was asked by the police
to work as an informer against the the Maoists. On refusing he was locked up
in a bathroom in the Dantewada police station for close to 40 days. When
Himanshu Kumar filed a habeas corpus petition in the Chattisgarh High Court
, Kodopi was released on bail. However, the police continued to harass him
till the point when he came to Delhi and studied as a journalist for several
months under the patronage of Himanshu Kumar. Then there was a terrible
massacre and burning of three villages in Chattisgarh. Lingaram Kodopi who
was now trained to be a journalist, went back to Chattisgarh and took
footage from these three villages,the first hand account of the villagers
and the way the huts were burnt down by the SPOs. The fact that Linga Kodopi
has this footage appears o have become a source of worry for the state
police. Their harassment of Linga and his aunt Soni Sori, who is a teacher
in a government ashram in Chattisgarh, has gone up exponentially. A few
weeks ago a constable in Dantewada asked Soni and Linga to pose as Maoists
and and take a bribe from a Essar contractor B.K Lala. When they refused to
do it, the constable forcibly made a call from Sori's phone to Lala.
Subsequently they caught Kodopi and Lala from their house, but reported that
were caught red handed from the market exchanging 15 lakh rupees. Kodopi now
is in jail but Soni Sori was forced to run away and take refuge elsewhere.
Talking from an undisclosed location, she called back this constable, a man
called Mankad and asked him what was the truth of the story. The phone call
was recorded by Tehelka. Mankad admitted over the phone that Kodopi was
arrested from his house, unlike what the police had earlier stated, and
hinted that the arrest was a setup. He also told Sori to stay away and that
their is no evidence against her. Sori, meanwhile, is on the run. She has
three children in a hostel. One of them is a 5 year old. But the irony is
that the maoists think they are informers. Somedays back they attacked
Sori's fathers house and shot her father in the leg. Her husband meanwhile
has been in jail for close to a year now. This is the ground reality in
Chattisgarh. The police of Chhattisgarh clearly doesnt want these stories to
reach the people.
-- 
Peace Is Doable

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