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Thursday, January 14, 2010

DANTEWADA: From Detention Drama to 'Dacoit' Declaration – PART - II

Continued from PART – I …

NOTE: These news about how tribals are harassed and then put behind bars for no rhyme or reasons are the standard ILLEGAL procedures of Special Police Officers (SPOs) in Dantewada... under the able guidance of Home Minister Chidambaram and Indian Government... However, you will never get to see such real news on your favourite News Channels AAJ TAK, NDTV, IBN7, CNN IBN, ZEE NEWS, STAR NEWS, DD NEWS or else read in any National Dailies... Pathetic but true... - Johnny D

A real life experience by this brave girl, who faced the wrath of Police Administration and Local Journalists in Dantewada…even putting danger to her own life for the sake of poor tribals, who are being slaughtered by SPOs in the name of investigation… who will protect INDIANS from INDIAN GOVERNMENT??? – Johnny D

STRAIGHT FROM THE HEARTLAND OF DANTEWADA (13th Jan 2010, 2000 Hrs) – Continues…

From Detention Drama to 'Dacoit' Declaration – PART - II

By Priyanka Borpujari

On Tue, 12 Jan 2010 10:35:45 +0530 wrote:

We got a jeep-taxi and began to stack in all our luggages. The Ashram was locked and I looked back at the remnants of tireless effort of 17 long years of one single man. The taxi driver turned the car key, and one cop came, and switched it off. He told us, “You cannot leave.”

The drama begins... We got off the car, sat for a while, but soon realised that we were not being told why we were stopped. It was 4.30 pm then, and more cops arrived. Almost all of them were busy talking over their mobile phones. None of them, except for one stout lady constable, wore any uniform. Heading the team looking over us was Deputy Superintendent of Police (DySP) on Probation, Rajan Jaiswal. This petite Denzel Washington-look-alike refused to talk to us, and said that all we should do was just sit. Realising that it would be one long drama with many different acts, I tried to argue that we had a bus at 5 pm, and we needed to get our ticket money back. He promised to get the cash back for us; I didn't believe his words.

The value of a tribal: We sat under the tree where Himanshu fasted for 10 days and spun the charkha. Suddenly, we saw about 30 tribals walking in from the main road, towards us. Some of them went ahead and spoke to Lakhimi, one of the tribal women with us. She told us that they had arrived from a distant village to attend the Jan Sunwai (public hearing) which was scheduled to be held two days later on January 7th – wherein Home Minister P. Chidambaram had promised to show his presence but was told to stay away by the Chhattisgarh administration as they feared that their dirty linen would be out for the nation to watch and condemn.

I don't know when and how: We were all too busy making phone calls and sending SMSes to out friends about our illegal detention – but about 10 minutes later, we saw that the 30 people were distanced from us. The tribals were taken about 100 metres away from us, into an open field, and were surrounded by about four SPOs. I tried to go towards them but was stopped. Precisely at that moment I saw the difference my education and urban upbringing could make in that situation – those tribals and I were illegally detained, but my English-smattering and names-dropping skills could bail me out; but the tribals would only slip further into the quicksand. I knew I would be out sooner or later; I wasn't so sure about the vulnerable 30 who trust everyone so blindly. That's when Satyen and I realised that the 'joke' was going too far.

About 15 minutes later, we saw three grey Boleros, without any number plates, approach those tribals. Some men got off, they wrote something on some papers and slowly, the tribals were made to get in. I ran for the video camera and began to document what was happening. The SPOs stopped me, but I gave a straight look and told them that I couldn't be stopped from filming. Satyen too, by then, had begun to document. The 30 tribals were packed and sent into nowhere, and as I turned around in horror as the truth set in, many pairs of male eyes were staring at me, some of them looking at me through their mobile phone cameras.

Read what happens next in PART – III…

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