INDIA: Family forced into abject poverty because of police and army actions

Dear friends,

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received further information from the Social Development Foundation, Delhi, India, about the desperate conditions faced by a family that has been forced into hunger and abject poverty due to persecution by authorities conducting operations against communist militants. The authorities have hounded the family of five, headed by Dashrath and Shyama Devi, because a sixth member is allegedly one of the militants. They have now had their meagre possessions confiscated, supposedly under a judicial order, and are living on the streets with nothing. The confiscated items included the family’s food stocks. 

The family consists of tribal people, or Adivasis, living in Sonebhadra district of eastern Uttar Pradesh. There are reports that many other Adivsasi families in the region are facing similar calamities for a number of reasons. One is the strong discrimination they face from the majority population, and their vulnerable position before local authorities. Another is that many have allegedly been forced into militant activities because of decades of persecution and inconclusive land disputes with the state government forest department. The families of those who allegedly become involved with such activities are easy targets for police and military harassment.

The AHRC urges you to write to the authorities in Uttar Pradesh and bring to their notice the plight of Dashrath’s family and many others like them, in order that they cease persecuting the families of alleged militants, restore to them their possessions and otherwise compensates them for their losses. Please also urge them to uphold the right to food under any circumstances in conducting state security operations. 

Urgent Appeals Desk — Hunger Alert
Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC)
———————————————————–

DETAILED INFORMATION:

Location: Madhupur village, Sonebhadra district, eastern Uttar-Pradesh           
Persons affected: One family of five: 1. Dasrath (father, 60); 2. Shyama Devi (mother, approximately 47); 3. Anil (son, 14); 4. Manju (daughter, 13); 5. Rinky (daughter, 6)
Reason for hunger: Forced confiscation of property by police and personnel of Provincial Armed Constabulary Battalion 34

Dasrath, Shyama Devi and their three children had their few meagre possessions confiscated by the authorities during a house raid on 2 December 2004 over allegations that their other son, Sanjay Kol, is a communist militant. The order to confiscate the possessions was supposedly given by the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Mirzapur. Police and personnel of the Provincial Armed Constabulary Battalion 34 carried out the raid. The confiscated items were already barely enough for the family to survive, consisting of little more than a cot, cooking pans, buckets, 40kgs of paddy, 2kgs of flour, and a blanket. The family is now living on the streets with nothing, and is facing starvation as a result.  

The authorities have frequently persecuted the family as a way to try to get at the son. Dasrath was himself arrested twice in 2002 and once in 2003. Due to continuous harassment, the family moved from their Jhariyava village under Naugarh police station to Madhupur village, to try to escape the constant problems. At their new place, they worked as labourers in the fields. However, their attempt to escape from the constant threats by the authorities appears to have been unsuccessful, as the family has now been brutally forced onto the streets with no way to survive. 

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

In some rural areas of Uttar Pradesh armed communist militants are still active due largely to the continued gross inequalities of wealth and land distribution and extreme poverty that large numbers of people experience in the state. The Adivasi peoples face multiple forms of persecution and marginalisation, and are therefore also perceived by the authorities as more likely to have connections with the militant groups. In particular, the Adivasis have special rights under national laws to land and forest areas; however, the state and local authorities deny these using various pretexts and ruses, or simply stalling land settlement claims in never-ending circles of bureaucracy. The AHRC has earlier this year described in detail the plight of another group of Adivasis in the same district, which captures these issues (HA-01-2004 and HU-01-2004).   

In dealing with the militants, the police and military units resort to gross human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings and torture, illegal arrest, and the types of attacks on vulnerable relatives of alleged militants as experienced by Sanjay Kol’s family. They act without regard to the circumstances of the families or their basic human dignity, and without thought to proper methods of investigation. These types of practices are employed by law-enforcement authorities throughout India, as numerous Urgent Appeals released by the AHRC indicate (see most recently UA-171-2004, UA-172-2004). However, the rural tribal and low-caste groups affected in areas like Sonebhadra are among the most vulnerable to these abuses, and those least likely to be able to do anything in response. 
 
There are also very few attempts to analyse the reasons for the continued militancy and connect it to the state policies, mismanagement, corruption and gross abuses of human rights that cause popular dissatisfaction.

SUGGESTED ACTION:

Please write to the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and demand that he intervene in this case. A sample letter follows. 

—————-

 

To support this case, please click here: SEND APPEAL LETTER