{"id":103807,"date":"2009-02-07T12:27:55","date_gmt":"2009-02-07T06:57:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=103807"},"modified":"2009-02-07T12:27:55","modified_gmt":"2009-02-07T06:57:55","slug":"the-jungle-justice-of-the-trigger-happy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/the-jungle-justice-of-the-trigger-happy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Jungle Justice Of The Trigger Happy"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Death becomes her<\/strong> Singaram\u2019s Karam Kanni denies her husband, killed on January 8, was a Naxal<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nMADKAM DEVA is a tribal, the sort characterised romantically in social science schoolbooks and museum artifacts illustrative of India\u2019s remotest jungle peoples. There is nothing charming though about the chilling tale of a bloodbath he recalls staccato, walking barefoot as always in the sprawling southern forests of Chhattisgarh, waving at the deep red blood clots thickened on fallen leaves, still enough food in them for frenzied golden ants two weeks after human gore was spilled here. Deva\u2019s blood would be here, too, had he not ducked the machinegun fire in a nanosecond, leapt behind the shrubbery like frightened deer, and bolted through the cascading landscape.<\/span>
\n\u201cThey made us stand in a line and ordered us to bow our heads,\u201d Deva says of those terrifying moments between life and death. \u201cI was the last and that gave me just enough time to escape.\u201d<\/span>
\nFour more proved lucky. But 19 others did not. A posse made largely of men from the Salwa Judum (literally, Peace Gathering), the tribal militia raised by the state as a quasi police force, killed 15 men and four women at this spot on the afternoon of January 8, 2009, triggering a massive furor across the state and worsening the battle lines between the armed Maoist insurgents, popularly called the Naxals, and the state police.<\/span>
\nImmediately, the police named the killings a huge \u2014 and rare \u2014 success in their grim and often adverse battle against the Naxals who, for three decades, have had a free run of some 15,000 sq km in Bastar, the traditional name for the vast heavily forested tribal region that now encompasses five districts in south Chhattisgarh. \u201cOur fight to the finish has begun,\u201d Chhattisgarh Home Minister Nanki Ram Kanwar told TEHELKA in the state capital, Raipur, this week. \u201cWe will soon reoccupy our lands that the Naxals have controlled for decades.\u201d<\/span>
\n[box]
\nWHAT HAPPENED: THE POLICE VERSION<\/strong>
\nThe Salwa Judum SPOs had intelligence that Naxals were to meet near Singaram
\nThe 84-strong SPO party patrolled the area without entering any village<\/strong>
\nAt 4pm, as they crossed Singaram, a group of Naxals opened gunfire on them
\nThe SPOs retaliated with heavy firing, and the encounter lasted 90 minutes<\/strong>
\n15 of the \u201couter layer\u201d of Naxals were killed. But the \u201chardcore\u201d cadre escaped. Rifles, grenades and other arms were recovered
\nThe SPOs left the bodies behind and returned with the collected weapons<\/strong>
\n[\/box]
\n
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\u2018Those who claim the police killed unarmed people must prove it. Why don\u2019t the villagers give the bodies for autopsy?\u2019
NANKI RAM KANWAR<\/strong>
Home Minister, Chhattisgarh<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nThat may be long in the coming, if at all. For now, the rebels have reacted strongly, slamming the killings and vowing revenge in banners, pamphlets and posters distributed across the region; calling successful general shutdowns; blocking highways by digging up roads and cutting trees; and burning trucks. A massive cry has gone up across the state\u2019s tribal region, among human rights groups, and from the opposition Congress and Communist parties, rejecting the police claims, alleging instead that those killed were innocent villagers picked up forcibly from their homes, marched into the woods, and shot in cold blood. \u201cAll the dead bodies were found lying together, which wouldn\u2019t be the case if this was a genuine encounter,\u201d says Manish Kunjum of the Communist Party of India (CPI), a three-term ex-MLA who organised a massive protest rally of thousands of tribal people.<\/span>
\n
\"\"
\u2018They kidnapped me from my village and made me walk all day. I ran when I saw the man behind me shot dead\u2019
EMLA HUNGA<\/strong>
Survivor, Danteshpura village<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nThe state High Court has stepped in, too, demanding full facts from the police, after some 20 relatives of those killed, reached by an NGO in their remote villages, walked 70km and then bussed 500km to Chhattisgarh\u2019s northern city of Bilaspur to file a petition before the Court seeking a probe into the killings. Says Kopa Kunjum, a human rights activist with the NGO Vanvasi Chetna Ashram, who walked two days to the remote villages to bring these relatives to the city: \u201cBy all accounts, those killed did not have weapons. This was a one-way shootout; only the police had the guns.\u201d<\/span>
\n
\"\"
\u2018It is a false allegation that we killed innocents. They were hardcore Naxals and they shot at us, drawing our fire\u2019
MADKAM MUDRAJ<\/strong>
Ex-Naxal, now Salwa Judum SPO<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nTESTIMONIES TEHELKA has gathered from extensive travels in the Naxal-controlled territory over a week suggest that the police story might be just that: a story. We extensively interviewed three of the five men who claim they survived the bloodbath; the kin of eight of those killed; and many villagers who claim they witnessed the Salwa Judum enter four villages and abduct 24 people.
\nWe walked four hours to the remote village of Singaram, from where four of those killed were allegedly abducted, and spoke over two days with their relatives and other witnesses. We spoke to them individually, grilling them at length, checking especially to see if the truth indeed lay in the police version \u2014 that a Naxal group fired on the Salwa Judum patrol, forcing it to retaliate, and that the villagers\u2019 narrative was a false one thrust upon them by the Naxals. Apart from the survivors, we took a dozen villagers to the scene of the killings some three kilometres from Singaram, and heard them describe their visits there the day after the killing to locate the dead. Such testimonies largely corroborate each other.<\/span>
\n
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\u2018Prima facie there may be contradictory testimonies, but I believe in the end we will get a generally coherent story\u2019
ANKIT ANAND<\/strong>
SDM in charge of probe<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nOn the other hand, there are discrepancies in the narratives of two individuals TEHELKA spoke to from the police. One is Rahul Sharma, IPS, who is the Superintendent of Police (SP) of Dantewada, the district in which Singaram falls and which is one of the state\u2019s two most heavily Naxal affected districts.Sharma directly planned the January 8 incursion into the Singaram region, the deepest the police or its militias have ever gone in the Naxal territory in Chhattisgarh. The second is Kichche Nanda, 27; the plucky leader of the militia-police combine who claims his 84-men team ran into the Naxals and killed them.<\/span>
\nImportantly, though the survivors and the relatives of those killed vehemently deny links with the Naxals, several others, including those who allege that the Salwa Judum militia shot defenceless people in cold blood, concede the police claim that at least a few of those killed were indeed the \u201couter layer\u201d of the Naxals or were closely linked to the Maoists. \u201cIt is known that Sitakka alias Seetey worked with the Naxals,\u201d said a villager requesting anonymity, referring to the woman killed who the police claim was the leader of the group that was killed. \u201cShe had trained in providing medical care to the Naxals.\u201d<\/span>
\n
\"\"
\u2018The police lie freely and falsely accuse people of being Naxals. How come no policeman died if there was a crossfire?\u2019
MANISH KUNJUM<\/strong>
CPI leader & ex-MLA<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nHere\u2019s what the survivors of the gunfire and other villagers claim happened on January 8, 2009. Around 9am, a group of 150 to 200 men wearing battle fatigues and carrying guns entered a village named Danteshpura, and immediately began ransacking its homes. Here, they abducted nine people, including two women, and forced them to carry their backpacks. \u201cThey told us they will take us to a police station 30km away and then let us go,\u201d says Emla Hunga, one of the five survivors. \u201cWe believed them and started walking with them.\u201d Of this group of nine, only Hunga survived the subsequent massacre. His brother, who was also abducted, died.<\/span>
\nBefore noon, this party had reached another village named Korrusguda. Here, they picked up a woman and eight men, including Madkam Deva, one of the five who escaped the bloodbath and is quoted at the beginning of this report. Deva was atop his granary near his hut when two men jumped him. These nine, too, were made to carry backpacks. Finally, by 3pm, the abductors and their hostages reached Singaram. Here, four more were caught, including Sitakka, who the police say led the \u201cNaxal group\u201d.<\/span>
\nShortly after leaving Singaram, the party stopped by a forest stream three kilometres ahead. \u201cThey asked us to rest here, saying they will give us food,\u201d recalls Hunga. But that was not to be. Instead, the militia opened the backpacks and took out shirts and trousers. They forced seven men to discard their lungis, the tribal people\u2019s wraparound, and wear trousers. They were also forced to wear shirts over their vests. One man was forced to wear a battle fatigue. The militia then divided the hostages in three groups. Fifteen men, including Deva, were moved away in one direction. Four women, one of whom was taken hostage moments ago as she was walking past, were taken to another corner. Hunga and four others were forced to stay by the stream.
\n\u201cWe heard the women scream, then gunshots, then silence,\u201d Deva recalls. Between the gunshots and the screams, he saw the abductors go into batches towards where the women were taken. Says Emla Harma, still sitting by the stream, who later escaped: \u201cThe women cried out for their mothers a long time.\u201d<\/span>
\n
\"\"
\u2018I walked two days to reach the villages and speak to the people there. Their stories are true: this was a one-sided killing\u2019
KOPA KUNJUM<\/strong>
Activist, Vanvasi Chetna Ashram<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nTHESE TESTIMONIES, and those of the villagers\u2019 who fetched the dead the next day and claim the women\u2019s bodies were partially or fully naked, have brought the allegation that the women were raped before they were killed. Some of the pictures of the dead bodies taken by journalists from nearby towns of Andhra Pradesh, who visited the scene of the killings a day later, indeed showed the women\u2019s clothes disheveled, even in a state of undress.<\/span>
\nAfter the women were killed, the 15 men were lined up between the trees. Soon, bullets were flying around. Fourteen died instantly. Deva alone escaped. That left the party of five men, still by the stream, stricken with fear. The abductors now forced these five men to lift the backpacks and start walking again in a file. Harma led the queue. Hunga was number four. \u201cSuddenly, one of the gunmen stepped to a side and opened fire,\u201d says Hunga. \u201cI turned and saw blood gushing from the man behind me.\u201d In a flash, the other four threw the backpacks and darted in the forest, surviving the hail of bullets chasing after.<\/span>
\nThe five survivors reached their respective villages late at night and shared their harrowing tales. By then, Dantewada\u2019s SP, Sharma, had gone public with the claim that his men had killed 15 Naxals in an encounter near Singaram. The next morning, scores of villagers descended on the scene of the killings. So did the journalists from Andhra Pradesh, who extensively took pictures of the dead and went back to write the first stories questioning the police claim of an \u201cencounter\u201d. Sharma told TEHELKA the police had seized 10 backpacks, five rifles, five hand grenades, two 2-inch country-made mortars, 6kg gelatin, and some \u201cbomb-making material\u201d. These were presented before the media at a police station the next day.<\/span>
\n
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Grief-stricken Villagers who retrieved the bodies the next day said the women were half-naked
Photo:<\/strong> File Pictures<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nSurvivors Hunga and Deva had recognised up to four of the men in the Salwa Judum. They are called Special Police Officers (SPOs). The survivors say these four SPOs are tribal people from other villagers, and once worked with the Naxals but later crossed over to the Salwa Judum. They include Madkam Mudraj, who confirmed to TEHELKA he was indeed once a child Naxal soldier but was now an SPO and had played a key role in the January 8 killings.<\/span>
\nThe police, on the other hand, claim that this party of Salwa Judum SPO and some regular policemen had been patrolling the region since the night of January 6. \u201cWe were walking in two groups apart by 500m when the Naxals saw one group and started firing at it,\u201d says Nanda, who led the patrol. The Naxals, he says, were in the middle of the two groups of SPOs and this made them sitting ducks. But there are discrepancies:<\/span>
\n\u2022<\/strong>\u00a0Sharma says the group had 54 SPOs and 30 policemen. Nanda says they were 74 SPOs and five policemen with four others.<\/span>
\n\u2022\u00a0<\/strong>Sharma says the \u201cpolice party generated intelligence at village Danteshpura that a large quantity of ration had moved towards Singaram village\u201d. But Nanda said his party did not enter any of the villages or talk to anyone there.<\/span>
\n\u2022\u00a0<\/strong>Sharma says three men received body injuries. But, when pressed, Nanda said one man was injured on his palm, while the other two \u201cfainted because they were shooting on hungry stomachs\u201d. Within a week, the one with the palm injury had returned to work.<\/span>
\n\u2022<\/strong>\u00a0Sharma admits the arms recovered are old but says that\u2019s because the \u201chardcore\u201d Naxals, who use sophisticated guns, had run away quickly leaving behind only the \u201couter layer\u201d. But Nanda says the encounter lasted 90 minutes with massive firing from both sides.<\/span>
\n\u2022\u00a0<\/strong>Inexplicably, Nanda, who had an AK47, only fired 15 rounds in 90 minutes. He says he didn\u2019t need to shoot more as \u201cI shoot only if I can see a person\u201d. Yet he couldn\u2019t say if he killed anyone.<\/span>
\n[box]
\nWHAT HAPPENED: SURVIVORS\u2019 TALES<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
\n150-200 SPOs entered four villages, looted them, and abducted 24 people<\/span>
\nThe hostages were forced to carry backpacks and walk over 15km<\/strong><\/span>
\nJust outside Singaram, the SPOs forced seven men to wear shirts and trousers<\/span>
\nMarched ahead, 4 women were heard screaming until gunshots rang out<\/strong><\/span>
\n15 men were lined up and shot at. 14 died but one, Madkam Deva, escaped<\/span>
\nThe five remaining men were made to walk again with backpacks. Four of them escaped as one was shot dead<\/strong><\/span>
\n[\/box]
\nSo, how come not a single SPO died or even received gunshots? Why did the SPOs, who numbered over 80, not carry with them the 15 dead bodies they claim to have counted on the spot? Why don\u2019t the police carry out tests on the body of Sitakka, which lies buried in Singaram, to establish if she was raped?<\/span>
\nFor now, Ankit Anand, an IAS officer in his first posting at Dantewada as a sub-divisional magistrate, is holding a \u201cmagisterial inquiry\u201d. He has visited Singaram and recorded 24 statements, both from the villagers and the police-SPOs. His mandate is to establish (a) whether the police had \u201csufficient reason\u201d to believe they were Naxals and (b) whether the police had \u201csufficient chance\u201d to catch them without killing them. He says he has found \u201cdifferent points of view\u201d in the testimonies. \u201cPrima facie we may feel that they are contradictory,\u201d he says, \u201cbut in the end, we will get a story that is generally coherent.\u201d Just how?<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Salwa Judum kills 19 people claiming they are Naxals. The Naxals say they were innocent villagers. Ajit Sahi walks 40km in the jungles of Chhattisgarh to hunt the truth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[56],"tags":[8626,1706,8887,1181,8750,6775,8888],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103807"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103807\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}