Named for Naxal ‘nexus,’ Delhi prof,NGO call Chhattisgarh police fascist

In an unsigned press release on Sunday,Chhattisgarh Police said Kodopi planned the attack on Avdesh Singh Gautam’s house,that he trained in Delhi and was doing a media-related course there,and had links with Sundar,NGO Vanvasi Chetna Ashram of Himanshu Kumar,Arundhati Roy and Medha Patkar.

The police also claimed that some foreign journalists were present at the site of the attack,apart from “Javed” who recorded the incident.

Sundar’s husband and bureau chief of The Hindu in Delhi,Siddharth Varadarajan said the Chhattisgarh Police had “gone too far”.

“The matter is truly absurd… According to the police,the so-called ‘mastermind’ of the attack is an Adivasi guy called Lingaram,who successfully won a case in a Bilaspur court against the CG cops last year when they tried to forcibly recruit him as an SPO. After that he came to Delhi and is doing some kind of media course in Noida. If the police really believe he’s the mastermind,it is astonishing that they would arrest others first and not move to apprehend him,but instead announce his guilt in a press statement,giving him time to flee!” Varadarajan wrote in an e-mail to editors of major media houses.

“In any case,to go from there to trying to insinuate that Nandini,Medha,Arundhati Roy and Himanshu Kumar are somehow connected to the Maoist attack is sheer defamation,” Varadarajan said.

Javed Iqbal,who works with The New Indian Express daily,also expressed surprise that his name had found place in the claim made by Chhattisgarh Police.

“I was travelling in the region on work,where I happened to bump into some foreign journalists. The incident happened around the same time as the semi-final match between Germany and Spain (at the FIFA World Cup). In fact,we were watching the match at a place over 20 km away. It is simply not possible for me to be present at two places at the same time,” he said.

Speaking to The Indian Express on Sunday,Patkar too had expressed surprise over the police claim and called the police story fake.

Reports from Raipur said a team of the Chhattisgarh State Intelligence Bureau (SIB) would be leaving to question Kodopi. Police sources said investigators had also identified a few people who had been frequenting Bastar “posing as journalists” and had been in “regular touch” with Maoist leaders.

Himanshu Kumar,whose NGO Vanvasi Chetna Ashram was one of those named by the Chhattisgarh police,said: “Our NGO runs a legal aid centre and Lingaram approached us for legal assistance after he and his family were harassed by police. The Chhattisgarh Police is playing a very cheap game. We will fight it out.”

Lingaram Kodopi told reporters in New Delhi that he had enrolled for a PG diploma in multimedia at the International Media Institute of India.

A resident of Sameli village in Dantewada district,Lingaram said he came to Delhi last year “to get away from the persecution and violence in my home district”.

“My family owns a car and a tractor. Sometimes I would help them with the tractor,but I generally used to drive the family car to ferry people around,often taking patients to hospital.”

He said the fact that he was relatively well-off in that area got him into trouble in the first place. “I began to be approached by the Naxals who tried enlisting me into their movement. I was simply not interested. The CRPF,on the other hand,kept trying to convince me to join the Salwa Judum. Again,I was not interested. When both sides saw my reluctance,they started harassing me and my family,” he alleged.

Himanshu Kumar’s lawyer Colin Gonsalves said: “We have brought Lingaram here to this press conference today to make it clear to the police,the media and the government that he is not running away. We want the Home Minister to know that if they want to pick him up,then please do so. They will not find any evidence against Lingaram.”