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In broad day light of
31-12-2002, the Andhra Police started firing on the people in the weekly market
(Tuesday) in Sitanagram village under Parnashala Panchayat (Khammam district)
killing Kadthi Some (Sammakka) of Bastar district and injuring another farmer.
We condemn this brutal attack by police and pay our homage to the martyr and
express our deep sympathy to the injured farmer’s family.
Khammam of Andhra
Pradesh and Bastar of Dandakaranya are the border districts comprising mainly
Adivasis. We can clearly see the similarity and the intimacy between the people
of these two districts. There is not much difference between the way of living,
customs, traditions and culture of these people. Their economic standard of
living is also the same. We can also see the family ties between these people.
They depend on the same local/weekly market for their daily needs. They are the
real owners of thick forests around them. The revolutionary movement, continuing
since 1980, has brought these people further close.
The Andhra police
couldn’t digest the revolutionary movement growing in these border areas. For
destroying the revolutionary movement in Bastar area, in addition to the
Chattisgarh police, both Maharashtra police and Andhra police are carrying out
frequent attacks on people. After the formation of the JOC under the leadership
of the central government the combined attacks on these districts have further
intensified. Only as part of this combined attack, the Andhra police have been
raiding Bastar villages, harassing the people there, arresting them, booking
them under false cases and putting them in jails and continuing their atrocities
on women. In spite all this repression the people in the border areas are
continuing their revolutionary struggle and strengthening their relations and
ties and are resisting these attacks to the extent possible.
In December 2002 the
police raided the villages of Chandragudem, Gondiguda, Mosalimadugu villages
belonging to Kishtaram and Gollapalli squad areas in South Bastar districts and
arrested some innocent farmers. With the intention to disrupt the observance of
the PGA week (2nd December to 8th December), the police not only carried out
extensive combing operations in the forests, they even fired at the people in
Chandrugudem village. The harassment of ordinary people and traders in the
weekly market was intensified. As a result of this it became difficult to
organise weekly markets in many villages and they were completely stopped in
some villages. And the poor peasant families had to face additional problems
because of this. Vexed by these police atrocities, which are increasing day by
day, the people in this area assembled at the Sitangaram weekly market on
31-12-2002 to express their protest and took out a procession. About four
thousand people participated in this procession displaying placards and banners
condemning police atrocities, demanding release of arrested people and their
other demands. Unable to bear this procession of men and women condemning them
on the streets of Sitanagarm, the police attacked the procession and started
indiscriminate firing on the people. They killed an ordinary peasant woman
Kadthi Some (Sammakka) belonging to Kishtarm village and took away the dead body
like hunters. In this firing another farmer was seriously injured. After this
incident, in their usual manner police came with a cock and bull story that
Naxalites came with four thousand people to loot the weekly market and when they
were obstructed by the police, Naxalites fired at them, and in counter-firing by
the police a woman Naxalite was killed. They shamelessly displayed some bows and
arrows and few old guns, which they found elsewhere.
The police and media
are continuously portraying the Bastar Adivasis as "Criminal Tribes". There is
need to strongly condemn this propaganda of describing people as thieves, and
appeal that such false propaganda be stopped. There is further need to condemn
this country’s Constitution for upholding the same policy of the British during
the colonial period of describing the heroic Adivasis who opposed them as
‘Criminal Tribes’. We call upon the people to extend their support in destroying
this anti-people Indian State and its police machinery. The people in these
border areas are living under severe famine conditions. And they are carrying
out famine raids. These famine raids can’t be treated as looting. They are
seizing property of landlords who came from far off places and grabbed the
Adivasi lands and amassed huge wealth from the sweat and blood of Adivasi
people. Please understand them and stand by them. Let us pay our humble homage
to our beloved Adivasi daughter Kadthi Some (Sammakka) and share the grief of
the injured farmer.
Jan. 5 2003
Bastar Divisional
Committee
CPI(ML)(PW)
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