INDIA: AHRC calls for international protest over massacre, questions Indian “democracy”
(Hong Kong, March 15, 2007) The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) on Thursday called for widespread protest to a massacre on Wednesday at an Indian village in which dozens of persons, including women and children, are reported to have been killed, saying that it signalled the decline of India’s democracy.
“We are horrified and disgusted at reports coming from West Bengal of the killings in Nandigram,” Basil Fernando, executive director of the Hong Kong-based regional group said.
Earlier in the day the AHRC issued an urgent appeal on the incident, in which some 5000 police, paramilitaries and members of the ruling state communist party are reported to have launched an assault on parts of East Midnapur district where villagers had been protesting the planned construction of a special industrial area.
Latest official reports have the official death toll at 14; however, unconfirmed reports put the number at over 50, with large numbers of seriously wounded persons being brought to ill-equipped rural medical centres.
Women and children had reportedly formed human barricades against the invading force, wrongly believing that it would stop the attack.
Video footage broadcast on Indian television today shows police assaulting villagers with batons before opening fire.
“What kind of democracy is India today that such an incident could occur?” Fernando asked.
“Is it the same land in which millions used non-violent resistance to expel the British?” he asked.
“The colonial regime scarcely dared to contemplate, and certainly not defend, the type of brutal force as is used routinely upon villagers throughout India today, be they women or men, young or old,” Fernando said.
On Thursday the chief minister of West Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, attempted to justify the security forces’ attack, causing outrage in the state parliament.
However, the state governor, Gopal Krishna Gandhi, described news of the events as filling him with “a sense of cold horror”.
“Given that the Indian establishment, including the courts, has hardened against the poor and now favours large companies who under the pretext of development seeking to push villagers off their land, it is perhaps not surprising that we are now witnessing out-and-out murder,” Fernando said.
“We are calling on all Indians as well as the entire international community to strongly and widely protest against this massacre,” he said.
“We also demand the immediate removal of all persons responsible, including the inspector general of police and all politicians involved,” Fernando added.
Fernando added that the state and central governments were obliged to rethink policy on the rights of the villagers and others subjected to forcible evictions in India.
The appeal issued by the AHRC can be viewed at: http://www.ahrchk.net/ua/mainfile.php/2007/2273/
