According to newspaper reports, on June 29, 2012, about six hundred troopers from the Central Reserve Police Force and the Combat Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA) commando unit opened fire on a gathering of villagers in Bijapur district of Chhattisgarh, as a result of which at least 20 villagers, including children and aged women and men were killed.
According to newspaper reports, on June 29, 2012, about six hundred troopers from the Central Reserve Police Force and the Combat Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA) commando unit opened fire on a gathering of villagers in Bijapur district of Chhattisgarh, as a result of which at least 20 villagers, including children and aged women and men were killed. Several villagers were injured, young women were sexually assaulted.
Several hundred adivasi peasants of Sirkegudem, Kothagudem and Rajupenta – adjacent villages in the Bijapur district of south Chhattisgarh – are reported to have gathered on the night of 28 June 2012 to plan the performance of the traditional festival Beej Pandum (seed festival) which is traditionally held every year before sowing begins. Suddenly they were surrounded by the security forces, who fired indiscriminately on the villagers, killing and wounding them. The bodies of those killed were dumped on a truck and sent away. Throughout the night the security forces are reported to have continued to loot, rape the women and girls, torture and harass the villagers.
As always, the Home Minister P. Chidambaram immediately declared to the media that “three Maoist leaders had been killed in an encounter”. He repeated his statement that Maoists pose the biggest internal threat to the security of the country. Even before the facts have been investigated, the monopoly media flashed headlines of “successful elimination of Maoists”, a claim that has been immediately contested by various independent investigators. In the days following the massacre, much publicity has been given in the media to the claims of the security forces that they “killed in self defence” as they had been attacked by Maoists.
Mazdoor Ekta Lehar condemns the brutal killing and torture of adivasi peasants in Chhattisgarh by the state security forces. These are part of the state terrorism that is regularly practiced by the state through its security forces. The aim of state terrorism is to crush the opposition of the workers, peasants, adivasis, youth, women and other sections of the toiling people to the attacks of the big bourgeoisie, on their livelihood and rights. It is well known that in the mineral rich areas of Chhattisgarh and other states of central and eastern India, big monopoly mining companies, with the assistance of the state machinery, have been grabbing land and other resources of the people residing there, with the aim of making super profits. The adivasis of Chhattisgarh have been militantly resisting these attempts.
The Indian state first tried to split the unity of the adivasis by organizing the notorious Salwa Judum, in which adivasi youth were organized to slaughter their own brethren. Thousands of adivasis were killed by the Salwa Judum in the name of “eliminating Naxalites”. Since 2009, the Indian state has launched “Operation Greenhunt”, in the name of “countering Maoist threat”. Under “Operation Greenhunt” the security forces as well special commando teams such as the CoBRA have been given a free hand to rape, loot, shoot and kill the villagers. Similar killing campaigns by the security forces of the Indian state have been organized since then, in the name of “Operation Haka” and “Operation Vijay”. Through all this, the state terror has been greatly intensified. This latest massacre must also be seen as part of this campaign of state terror.
There has been much public outrage against this latest massacre in Chhattisgarh and various activists have demanded a judicial inquiry into the incident. However, the experience of our people in numerous earlier cases of state terrorism has shown that we cannot have any faith that the guilty will be punished. In most cases, the proceedings of such inquiries stretch on for many months or years, and at best some officials may be transferred from one post to another, while the real criminals, i.e. the state and its agencies, go unpunished. State terrorism, as a preferred policy of the ruling class, to smash the resistance of the people, continues unabated.
Mazdoor Ekta Lehar calls upon the workers, peasants and all the toiling people of our country to unitedly raise their voice against state terrorism and work towards building the fighting unity of the people in the face of the attacks by the ruling class.