Mumbai: Exactly six years after the anti-Naxalite battalion of the Central Reserve Police Force allegedly killed eight tribals – including four minors – in Edesmetta village, Bijapur district, Chhattisgarh, the Supreme Court has ordered for an independent Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) to be set up to investigate the killings.
On May 3, the division bench of the apex court comprising Justices L. Nageswara Rao and M.R. Shah said that a team should be constituted with officers belonging to states other than Chhattisgarh.
Degree Prasad Chouhan, a human rights activist from Chhattisgarh, had moved the apex court soon after the incident (which occurred on May 17, 2013). He termed the court’s decision a “significant development”, as no investigation has been carried out in the matter so far.
“The state set up a judicial inquiry commission and a magisterial inquiry into the matter. But both inquiries have been pending even six years after the incident. My reasons to seek an independent inquiry with officers from outside the state was primarily to ensure the inquiry is unbiased and the state police have no role to play in it,” Chouhan told The Wire.
Chouhan was represented by a team of lawyers headed by senior counsel Colin Gonsalves of the Human Rights Law Network, a Delhi- based human rights law firm.
Also read: The Edesmetta Inquiry, and Adivasis’ Odyssey to Justice in Chhattisgarh
The Edesmetta incident had occurred on May 17, 2013 night when the villagers were celebrating their annual Beej Pandum, a ritual sowing festival just before the rains. According to the eyewitnesses and relatives of those killed in the incident, CoBRA (Commando Battalion for Resolute Action) personnel, a special anti-Naxal force of the CRPF, who were out on a combing operation, had attacked the village during the celebrations.
Those killed included Karam Somlu (35), Punem Somu (30), the Beeja Pandum priest Karam Pandu (37), Karam Guddu (10) Karam Masa (16), Karam Badru (8) and Punem Lakku (15) and CoBRA constable Dev Prakash, who also died after he was hit by a bullet fired by one of his colleagues.
In April last year, The Wire had published a detailed report about the ordeal faced by the victims’ families in deposing before the state set judicial inquiry commission headed by Justice V.K. Agarwal. Most families faced difficulties in understanding and processing the proceedings.
Human Rights Forum (HRF), an Andhra Pradesh-based human rights organisation, had visited the village soon after the incident and conducted a detailed fact-finding exercise. Media reports on the incident had quoted the then additional directorate general of police, Naxal operations, R.K. Vij. as saying that the villagers died because they were used as human shields by Naxals. But the series of testimonies of villagers gathered by HRF states that there were no Naxals in the village and that the attack was unprovoked.
The HRF report had looked into a series of incidents of police violence and grave violations of the human rights of Adivasis in the state and had concluded that:
“The brutalities being inflicted upon the Adivasis in South Chhattisgarh by a combination of security forces and vigilante groups like Koya Commandos and SPOs is part of a conscious counter-insurgency strategy of the government in its fight against the Maoists. In Chhattisgarh, time and again this has meant that Adivasis perceived of being the support base of the Maoists are being deliberately targeted and subjected to terrible violence… In pursuing this inhuman policy, both the Central and State governments are treating the law of the land and the Constitution with contempt.”
Located in Burgil panchayat and in the jurisdiction of the Gangalur police station, Edesmetta has 67 households located in six paaras (hamlets). Soon after the incident, the villagers had come together and sought an immediate investigation against the officer. But the then BJP government led by Raman Singh had dragged its feet on this demand and instead set up judicial inquiries to look in the matter.
Also read: Villagers Say Chhattisgarh Encounter Victims Were Civilians, Including Children
“No action has been initiated against the policemen who were involved in the operation,” Chouhan said. The operation was carried out under the supervision of Ashok Singh, the then sub-divisional police in-charge of Naxal operations in the region. He, in an interview to Tehelka magazine, had claimed that: “acting on a tip-off on the night of 17 May, security forces from six locations were dispatched to Pidiya village to nab Naxal commander Madhvi. The 208 battalion of CoBRA (Combat Battalion for Resolute Action) was dispatched from Gangalur and Cherpal.” The claims of a Naxal operative hiding in the village has been refuted by the villagers.
Chouhan says at least now the government will be forced to initiate investigations into one of the most brutal killings, after which the policemen involved have continued to be in service and the families have had to face severe hardship. “It was a cold-blooded murder carried out in the name of Naxals. Innocent children and young people were killed without any accountability. With a new SIT constituted, I am hopeful that the families here will finally get closure,” Chouhan said.