Saviours turn tormentors

Despite the Supreme Court’s disapproval of the formation of the salwa judum in Chhattisgarh to fight the Maoists with the blessings of the state government, the latest outrage in three villages in the Dantewada area by the police and the vigilante group has shown that the latter is still active. Since the incident occurred in a remote and deeply forested area, it took several days for the news of the atrocities to filter through. But now it is apparent that it is just the kind of incident which helps the Maoists to gain support among the local people.

During an anti-Maoist operation in the villages, the police and the salwa judum activists were said to have killed at least three men with many more still missing, raped three women and burnt nearly 300 huts and destroyed granaries. Their depredations were such that several people died of starvation later because the stored food and grains were destroyed. As a result, the government had to send emergency rations.
 
When a group of social workers led by Swami Agnivesh, a prominent Maoist sympathiser, tried to reach the area, they were forced to turn back by the local police and the salwa judum supporters, who evidently did not want the outside world to know of their acts of murder, rape and arson. Evidence of how the salwa judum has become a law unto itself was available when a police officer, who accompanied Swami Agnivesh, failed to file an FIR about the attack on their convoy with the local police.
 
The government may have belatedly become active by transferring two of the senior officials. But it will take much more than such token gestures to ensure that the police do not violate the letter and spirit of the law in their pursuit of the Maoists and that illegal entities like the salwa judum do not run amok with impunity.
 
Dantewada is one of the areas which have borne the brunt of Maoist violence. The deaths of 75 CRPF jawans in a Maoist ambush in April last year were one of the most chilling incidents which marked the anti-Maoist operations. Since then, a fall in the number of such incidents has underlined the government’s success in tackling the Maoist menace. However, while carrying on the drive against the insurgents, the government has to ensure that its forces do not resort to cruelty and lawlessness of the rebels.
 
(http://expressbuzz.com/opinion/editorials/saviours-turn-tormentors/260454.html  29/03/11, Express Buzz)