Salwa Judum illegal,scrap it,says SC

It also directed the central government to forthwith cease providing funds for the in recruitment of SPOs against Naxalite groups.

SPOs,also known as Koya Commandos,are local,mostly tribal youth drafted by the Chhattisgarh government to fight the Maoist insurgency. The state government and police have said that they add muscle to the security forces and provide human intelligence. The government had earlier armed tribals to create an anti-Naxalite militia known as Salwa Judum.

The Supreme Court today said that it was clear… that in this policy of using local youth,jointly devised by the union and the states facing Maoist insurgency,as implemented in the state of Chhattisgarh,the young tribals have literally become cannon fodder in the killing fields of Dantewada and other districts…

Appointing poor,mostly illiterate youngsters who are incapable,on account of low educational achievements,of learning all the skills,knowledge and analytical tools to perform such a role endangering their lives,is necessarily a denigration of their dignity as human beings,the court said.

This,the court held,was a violation of their fundamental rights. Both Article 21 and Article 14 of the Constitution of India have been violated,and will continue to be violated,by the appointment of tribal youth,with very little education,as SPOs engaged in counter-insurgency activities.

Article 14 equality before the law and equal protection of the laws is violated because subjecting these youths to the same levels of danger as members of the regular force,who have better education and training and possess a better capacity to benefit from training,would be to treat unequal as equals,the court explained.

Article 21 protection of life and personal liberty was violated because youngsters with such poor educational qualifications cannot be expected to understand the dangers that they are likely to face,or skills which are needed to face such dangers,the court said.

The issue of SPOs arose during hearing of a petition filed by sociologist Nandini Sundar,historian Ramachandra Guha,former bureaucrat E A S Sarma and others seeking a direction to the Chhattisgarh government to refrain from supporting the Salwa Judum.

The court also ordered a CBI probe into the attack on activist Swami Agnivesh during his visit to Chhattisgarh in March,allegedly by a group of people that included SPOs and Salwa Judum members. We direct the CBI to take over the investigation into series of violence and attack unleashed on Swami Agnivesh and his companions, the court said.

The Bench observed that one of the primary motives to employing tribal youth as SPOs was to make up for the lack of adequate formal security forces on the ground. This situation,the court said,as been created in large part by the socio-economic policies followed by the state. The policy of privatization has also meant that the state has incapacitated itself,actually and ideologically,from devoting adequate financial resources in building the capacity to control the social unrest that has been unleashed.

The Congress welcomed the Supreme Court order. It has always been our view that no one can take the law into their own hands. Law and order is for the authorities to handle and for courts, spokesman Shakeel Ahmed said.

The BJPs Rajiv Pratap Rudy said it was up to the Chhattisgarh government to respond to the judgment.