Ahmedabad: Several people, including journalists, filmmakers, lawyers and students were arrested from Chharanagar, allegedly as part of brutal police crackdown on illegal liquor sales in the city on Friday morning. However, locals who belong to a Denotified Tribe (DNT) called the Chharas, claim that those arrested were not involved in bootlegging alcohol and have been targeted as part of increasing police brutality in the area over the past few months.
Those arrested include Pravin Indrekar, a photojournalist with DNA, and his nephew Aatish Indrekar, who is an actor and director with the Budhan Theatre Movement in the area, which was initiated in 1998 by G.N. Devy, a renowned linguist and Mahasweta Devi, writer and Magsaysay awardee. Several lawyers and residents, including women were beaten by the police and arrested with no women personnel present, eyewitnesses claim.
According to the First Information Report, over 29 residents of the area were arrested as part of the crackdown while 150-200 are allegedly absconding. Those arrested have been charged of robbery, voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from his duty, rioting, unlawfully gathering, causing hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others, mischief causing damage to the amount of fifty rupees, obstructing public servant in discharge of public functions. Tellingly, none of the accused have been booked under sections of the Gujarat Prohibition (Amendment) Act, 2017, which attracts a 10-year sentence for any violation of the state’s alcohol prohibition law.
According to the FIR, a copy of which is available with The Wire, the raid began after an altercation between two young Chhara boys and sub-inspector D.K. Mori, of Sardarnagar police station at about 12:30 am on Friday. The boys were sitting near the Khodiyar Mata Temple in Chharanagar, when the cops arrived to raid homes to check for liquor close to midnight. The boys, ACP Ashok Yadav told the press, had gathered others from the area and allegedly pelted stones on the police vehicles, leading officials to call for reinforcements.
Locals tell a different story
However, locals tell a different story. They told The Wire that the altercation began because the boys had kept their shop open beyond the hours they were legally permitted to operate. An ill-tempered Mori scolded the boys to shut their shop. Accompanied by a constable in a private car, Mori allegedly slapped one of the boys when they argued with him demanding he prove his identity as a police officer. This sparked an altercation between the four and ended with them ripping Mori’s shirt off.
“The area was brimming with cops. They came into our homes, pulled us out and beat us. They even destroyed our vehicles. They spared no one. And the worst part: That Mori was drunk himself!” Ravibhai Rivekar, 50, a resident of the area said.
On the footage recorded by CCTV cameras outside the homes of several residents, Mori is seen walking around shirtless after the altercation. In another video, the police (some allegedly in plain clothes) are seen damaging two wheelers and cars in the area. In yet another video, this time captured on mobile phones, some plain clothes police officials and others in uniform mercilessly beat a woman with their lathis, drag her off while other police vehicles and ambulances stood at a short distance from them. The Wire has been unable to independently verify these videos, which have been doing rounds on WhatsApp and other social media websites since Friday night.
A damaged autorickshaw.
Police walk by a damaged car.
Rivekar and wife were also beaten severely and sustained injuries on their arms and legs. They held up their bloodied and ripped clothes from the previous night, stating the police entered their home without reason and mercilessly beat them up. “We know there are people who bootleg in this area. We are not one of those families. We were sitting at home playing with the children when out of nowhere, these cops came in and brutally assaulted us,” said Rivekar. “We were not even involved in the initial altercation which happened at a distance from our home.”
Rivekar shows his shredded clothes.
Rivekar shows his injuries.
When Pravin Indrekar, the DNA photojournalist, heard that the police had violently come down on residents of his area, he rushed to capture some photographs. Eyewitnesses, including his son Rahul, say that by the time he stepped out at 1 am, between 300 and 400 police personnel had permeated Chharanagar and the area felt as though it was under siege. Pravin jumped into the fray to photograph the police brutally beating young boys and women in the area, when one of the police officials turned to him. “He was menacing. He asked my father how dare he take photographs. He [Pravin] kept telling them that he was a journalist and he had every right to do so. However, they did not listen. They broke his camera to pieces and began to trash him with their lathis,” Rahul told The Wire.
Within minutes, it became clear to Rahul that his father had been grievously injured. His family rushed him to the civil hospital, when the chaos began subduing by 5 am. Pravin’s fractured arm was plastered and he received medical attention. “We were not sure of what was happening back in Chharanagar by then. Then the police came and arrested him from the hospital and took him away,” Pravin’s wife Sharmila said. Sharmila, an assortment of journalists, lawyers from Chharanagar and hundreds of its residents were camped outside Sardarnagar police station, whose officers led the midnight raid.
Hundreds of people camp around the Sardarnagar police station.
Advocate K.V. Tamanchi, whose 22-year-old son was arrested, said he was stunned at the way the police acted. “We are not bootleggers. My son Parag works in the loan department of a prominent private bank. I sent him out to pick up medicines for Saroj, my wife, who has been running a fever for a few days. He and his sister Sejal, 18, stepped out and suddenly, we saw the police officers beating him. We tried to stop them, but they wouldn’t listen,” he told The Wire while waiting for the arrested to be brought to Ghee Kanta Court for their remand hearing. “When they hit his sister on the chest, Parag spoke up. She is an androgynous girl, so he told them that she is a lady and that they cannot touch her. But that only seemed to enrage them further,” said Saroj. By 3 am, Tamanchi told us, Parag had been taken away. “All my legal knowledge was not enough to prevent this brutality. I am a lawyer and we don’t bootleg alcohol. So why were we treated in this manner?”
Matters had been tense
Locals say that matters between Chharanagar residents and Sardarnagar police have been tense for the past few months. It all began after the Gujarat Police, as part of its Women’s Day programme decided to host informal talks with women in the area. “They asked us to stop bootlegging alcohol, which we refused. There is no alternative employment for us and they just come and give us these speeches. We told them that if they could help beyond asking us to stop, we would pay heed to their advice,” a woman resident told this writer, asking for anonymity. “But the people who have been arrested don’t sell liquor. And even if they do, the cops should arrest the boys who accosted Mori or simply arrest those who sell alcohol. What was the need to damage private property and mercilessly beat people? We don’t really understand what happened [last night]. They have become so dictatorial in dealing with us ever since the argument on Women’s Day,” she added.
More recently, the Gujarat Police collaborated with Municipal Corporation to demolish homes of bootleggers in the area. They claimed that homes built from the alcohol business were illegal because the wealth to make them was not accumulated legally.
The Chhara community is a largely impoverished group of 20,000 people who live in the Chharanagar area of the city. The women, it is believed, make and sell alcohol. Some of the women residents told The Wire that the police always knew which homes make and sell liquor. “They regularly come to ask for their cut from the sales. Mori was drunk even the night he beat the boys. So if they really wanted to track us down, they could. They just wanted to demonise the entire community,” one of them said, sitting outside her home.
All the 29 arrested have been remanded to 14 days judicial custody. The hearing before the magistrate started at the magistrate’s home at 11pm on Friday night and went on till 3 am. Seventeen of them have filed submitted complaints against the police to the judge where they have claimed that they weren’t given food or water while under arrest.
All photos by Surabhi Vaya.