Anyone who dares to dissent against the Naveen Patnaik government in Odisha faces the risk of being branded a naxal or seditionist. The list of those jailed on trumped charges includes legions of protesting tribals, public-spirited lawyers and human rights activists. In a month long investigation Gulail lays bare a systematic subversion of civil liberties and extra-judicial killings by a government that has till now been by and large successful in avoiding media scrutiny.
The national narrative today revolves around the resurgence of communalism, deeply pervasive corruption, the spread of Maoist insurgency and competitive terrorism by Islamist and Hindutva forces. Narendra Modi, who is seen by many as the next prime minister, has for years, and rightly so, faced an intense scrunity by activists and hacks on his malicious failure in preventing the 2002 riots and presiding over the cold-blooded killings of innocent Muslim youth in staged police encounters.
The State of Odisha has however remained for the most part unabrased by such debates. Somehow the image of Naveen Patnaik portrayed by the national media has been of a benign, clean and efficent administrator.
However, a closer look would reveal a state marauded by a staggering number of human rights violations, a rural population constantly persecuted for resisting land acquisition and a civil society with its leading lights being gagged or jailed for raising a voice against state repression.
A month long investigation carried out by Gulail revealed that scores of social activists, journalists, lawyers, students and tribals have been arrested and jailed on the basis of clearly fabricated cases.
Close to 530 individuals are currently in various jails in Odisha in what prima facie appear as fabricated cases.
Out of these nearly 400 are tribals. Gulail has documents that show that 32 individuals in Badipada, 75 in Rourkela, 18 in Balangir and neighbouring districts, 27 in Gajapati/Ganjam, 35 in Kandhamal, 14 in Raigada, 70 in Koraput, 25 in Malkangiri, 6 in Bhubaneshwar, 42 in Kyonjhar, 2 in Chaudwar, 10 in Jajpur, 30 in Sambalpur/Devgarh/Badagarh are in jail at the moment. Many of these people have been in jail since 2008.
30 individuals have been killed in police firing in displacement related protests. In Kalinganagar in Jajpur district, 2006, 14 people were killed in police firing during a protest against displacement caused by a Tata steel plant. A judicial enquiry was announced and instated by the State government but seven years down the line, the report is yet to be submitted. This is one among many cases that Odisha has witnessed in the recent years.
75 individuals have been killed in various police encounters and branded as Maoists over the last 10 years. The most recent of these cases ocurred on 14th November 2012, when 5 individuals were killed during an encounter with security forces. On the 30th of November when a congregation of activists and families of the deceased protested outside the Vidhan Sabha Bhavan in Bhubaneshwar and demanded an inquiry into the killings, Naveen Patnaik refused to so much as meet them.
After spending three years in jail for Maoist related cases Arati Majhi was acquitted of all charges against her on 17th July 2013. Lack of evidence – inability of the police to produce seized items in court and contradictions in statements of key witnesses, made it amply clear that Majhi’s case was predicated on largely fabricated evidence.
Arati was 20-years-old and a week away from getting married when she was arrested in Maoist related cases.
She was picked up by the Special Operation Group and the Central Reserve Police Force, from her house in Jadingi village, Gajapati at 3:00 AM on 13th February 2010. Arati’s cousins, Shyam and Lazar Majhi, were also arrested. Five men from the SOG and CRPF then took her to the jungle and forced her to see pornographic pictures on a mobile phone.
Then they blindfolded and gang-raped her after which she lost consciousness. When she regained consciousness she found herself in Paralakhemundi. On inquiring about the reason behind her arrest she was threatened that she would be implicated in fabricated Maoist related cases.
The law does not permit a woman to be arrested after sunset and before sunrise. Arati was arrested at 3:00AM. There were no policewomen present during her arrest. No seizure list was made. Then, she was gang-raped in custody. She was forwarded to Berhampur jail on Judicial remand where she spent three years of her young life.
Altogether she had 6 cases registered against her. Four cases were related to the burning of four OSRTC buses and one of a Reliance tower by Maoists in Raipanka, Gajapati on the night of 27th December 2009. The other case involved damaging a forest beat house with explosions. Arati was charged with Sedition, waging war against the state, rioting, being a member of an unlawful association, the Arms Act and Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, amongst others.
Four cases were made out of one incident of the burning of four buses. No Test Identification parade was conducted during investigation. None of the witnesses, the only evidence the prosecution had claimed, recognised any of the accused as the ones who had burnt the buses. Not the drivers and the conductors who had registered the case. Neither the independent eye witnesses.
They all said, one by one, that the ‘miscreants’ had their faces covered. How then could they recognize them by face? The suggestion made by the Public Prosecutors to one of the witnesses that he had heard the attackers calling each other by name was also denied.
In all the four cases, with separate and over lapping witnesses, the judgement of acquittal follows the same tone and points out similar flaws in the case of the prosecution. The Judgement in one of the case goes onto note
“The witnesses have not implicated any one of the accused persons. Rather evidence of Public Witnesses goes to show that the culprits had covered their faces with clothes making it difficult for the witness to know their identity”. On cross examination of one of the witnesses the judgement noted “He has stated that he does not know the accused persons and anything about the case.” So not only were witnesses unable to recognise the accused as culprits, but they were also completely unaware of the case itself.
At another point one of the judgements states “ The very prosecution of the accused persons does not seem to be according to law.” Arati and her co-accused were acquitted in all four cases in relation to the burning of OSRTC buses. The last of the acquittals in this incident came on 27th November 2012.
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