A fact-finding team visited South Chhattisgarh between May 6 and May 8, 2016 to investigate and assess the reports of State violence on indigenous communities and the attacks on civil rights activists and human rights defenders. While cases of violation of human rights and civil liberties have been reported across the Bastar Division, an administrative division of southern Chhattisgarh comprising of districts of Bastar, Dantewada, Bijapur, Narayanpur, Sukma, Kondagaon and Kanker, the team was mandated to visit the 4 districts of Bastar, Dantewada, Bijapur and Sukma due to the necessity of investigating the specific cases mentioned below.
The fact-finding was constituted on the following rationale,
- Since the later 2014 and early 2015, consecutive cases of mass sexual violence by armed forces, false arrests and surrenders (of alleged ‘maoists’), encounters or extra-judicial killings, destruction of property and villages of indigenous communities were being reported with increasing frequency across the districts of Sukma, Bijapur, Dantewada and Bastar. In 2015, arrests of media persons took place in quick succession, followed by the harassment and hounding of lawyers, activists and other human rights defenders in South Chhattisgarh.
- The perceptible increase in the degree and frequency of violence used by the armed forces and police raise troubling questions about the State strategy to ostensibly deal with the Maoists under the tag of ‘Mission 2016’.
- While fact-findings by groups and organisations had taken place, this fact-finding was mandated to investigate a wider thematic of human rights cases towards formulating a more complete picture of the situation in South Chhattisgarh today.
- It was also hoped that eminent persons, associated with this fact-finding would act as witness to the suffering of the indigenous community and state violence carried out with impunity in Chhattisgarh today and lead advocacy initiatives to address the same.
The fact-finding team consisted of:
- Justice Hosbet Suresh, Retired Justice, Bombay High Court
- Mr. E.N. Ram Mohan, former Director General, Border Security Force (BSF)
- Dr.Virginius Xaxa, Director of Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Guwahati
- Ms. Saba Naqvi, Senior Journalist
The following persons accompanied the fact-finding for assistance in documentation and logistics:
- Sunil Kuksal (Human Rights Defenders Alert- India)
- Mathew Jacob (Human Rights Defenders Alert- India)
- Kishore Narayan (Human Rights Law Network, Chhattisgarh)
- Rajni Soren, (Human Rights Law Network, Chhattisgarh)
- Sridevi Pannikar (Independent Lawyer), on behalf of the Delhi Solidarity Group
The full report can be downloaded by clicking at below mentioned link.
Delhi Solidarity Group 