Mazdoor Ekta Lehar condemns with deep anger, the Indian state for carrying out the cold blooded killings of activists in various regions of Orissa to crush the opposition of the people to the mining projects of the biggest capitalist groups.
Mazdoor Ekta Lehar condemns with deep anger, the Indian state for carrying out the cold blooded killings of activists in various regions of Orissa to crush the opposition of the people to the mining projects of the biggest capitalist groups.
The Niyamgiri activist Lenju and his comrades were surrounded and killed when sleeping. As Lenju had predicted sometime back in an article in the bourgeois media, he was branded and killed as a “maoist”.
In Kalinga Nagar, where the people have been opposing a steel plant by the Tata’s for several years, the police forces organized a classical fake encounter. People already detained by the police were taken to the forest and killed, including a 12 year old girl Janga from Baligotha village. This happened a day before the 5th anniversary of the Kalinga Nagar massacre where 14 adivasis men, women and children were killed by the police for opposing the steel plant.
In Gandhamardhan, two leaders of the Gandhamardhan Suraksha yuva Parishad (GSYP), Madhav Singh Thakur and Ramesh Sahu, were shot dead by the police on December 26, 2010 at the Gandhamardhan hill range. This organization has been spearheading a campaign to protect the hills from mining for over 20 years. While the police claimed they were “Maoists”, the BJP condemned the incident pointing out that these two activists were members of their party. Many regions of Orissa observed a dawn to dusk shutdown in protest against these brutal killings on January 3, 2011.
The corporate media is promoting these killings as some big victory for the government in crushing “left extremism”. The ruling UPA government, as well as the Orissa government is the instrument of the big monopoly groups which run this country. This ruling class is hell bent on exploiting the great natural resources in Orissa and other parts of India. It is unleashing state terror, and deliberately branding all opponents as “Maoists” to justify repression and fulfill its goals. It is important for all those fighting for the rights of the people to unitedly expose and oppose the game plan of the ruling class.