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The Hitlerite regime
of Chandrababu Naidu, with religious adherence to economic reforms dictated by
the World Bank, has claimed another civil liberties leader, T.Purushotham. The
popular civil libertarian, state joint secretary of Andhra Pradesh Civil
Liberties Committee (APCLC) and a practising advocate at the Andhra Pradesh High
Court, Purushotham was assassinated by the mercenaries of Chandrababu Naidu and
his police officials in broad day light in a crowded residential area in
Hyderabad. The attack on Purushotham took place around 11.45 on Thursday
(November 23, 2000) in Madhurapuri Colony area of Dilsukhnagar in Hyderabad.
The assassins seem to
have come in a Tata Sumo and waited for Purushotham on a nearby main road. When
he came out of his house to buy some groceries in a shop across the main road
and was returning, he was called from the back. The assassins, believed to be
four persons, pounced on Purushotham and lacerated him with either lancets or
hunting sickles. Purushotham succumbed to a deep cut that slit his throat. The
dead body had two more deep cuts on his upper limbs.
Even as Purushotham
died on the spot, police, including the superintendent of police of Ranga Reddy
district arrived on the scene within minutes and shifted the dead body to
Osmania Hospital immediately. The police succeeded in erasing whatever little
evidence was available at the scene of the offence. The police lifted the body
from the place despite protests from Jyothi, Purushotham’s wife, who reached the
place immediately. Later the police even tried to clean up the place of offence
by throwing mud on the bloodstains and sweeping the floor.
Not only these
circumstantial evidences, but also the track record of the Andhra Pradesh police
amply prove that the criminal act was sponsored and abetted by them. Purushotham
is the fifth victim from the Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee to be
assassinated by the state police forces or their mercenaries over the last 15
years.
The state’s criminal
record of killing civil libertarians started in January 1985 when Gopi Rajanna,
an advocate and vice president of the APCLC, Jagityal taluq (Karimnagar
district) was shot dead by the BJP activists. The police did not initiate any
action against the culprits thus showing their complicity in the crime. Later,
Dr Ramanatham, a popular paediatrician in Warangal and state vice president of
APCLC was killed in his clinic in September 1985 by some policemen who came from
a procession that was passing by.
Japa Lakshma Reddy a
senior civil libertarian and state executive committee member of the APCLC was
killed in his home in Karimnagar by plainclothes policemen in November 1986.
Later the convenor of Warangal district committee of the APCLC and secretary of
the Warangal Bar Association , and a popular advocate, Narra Prabhakar Reddy,
was killed in his home at Warangal.
Out of these murders
of APCLC leaders, three were directly done by the police while one was abetted
by them. Thus there is every reason to believe that the police have a hand in
Purushotham’s assassination also.
More over,
Purushotham was a target of police attacks for a long time now. In May 1997,
plainclothes policemen had attacked Purushotham in Mahabubnagar and left him in
a pool of blood thinking that he was dead. Later the Green Tigers, a mercenary
outfit created by the police, claimed that it had done this. The writ petition
(No. 11363 of 1997) against this attack is still pending in High Court of Andhra
Pradesh even after three years!! He survived that attack after long
hospitalisation. He was implicated in a number of false cases in Mahabubnagar
district and received innumerable threats from the police. In fact, he chose to
shift his practice to the High Court, from the Mahabubnagar Sessions Court due
to this threat to his life.
What did Purushotham
do for attracting the wrath of the powers that be? He had been with the people
for most of his life. He had been championing the cause of the people and
fighting their cases. He would be at the forefront to question any wrongdoing on
the part of the police or powerful sections of society.
He started his public
life during the early 1980s when he became the district president of the Radical
Students Union (RSU) while he was in his graduation. He had done his B.Sc., and
B.Ed., before taking a degree in law. He worked as a teacher, a journalist and
an advocate in different places in the district and endeared himself to
thousands of the poor masses wherever he worked. He authored a number of reports
on democratic rights of people and violations by the police and vested
interests.
As an activist of the
APCLC, Purushotham would go to any place where people’s democratic rights were
violated and take up the case in earnest. He would visit the scene of "fake
encounters" and bring out the facts. He would file affidavits in the High Court
to order a re-post-mortem where the police tried to hush up cases and remove
evidences of cold-blooded murders. Under his dynamic leadership, APCLC teams
proved themselves to be the main opposition to the highhandedness of police and
state officials.
Purushotham had also
visited various states including Kashmir, the North-Eastern states and Karnataka
in various fact finding missions. He had also participated in a national
workshop on Human Rights Defenders organised by Amnesty International in
Bangalore in 1999.
With all this, the
state wanted to eliminate Purushotham thinking that it would silence the
exposure of their crimes. As he was the key person in bringing out the state’s
conspiracy to use covert operators against the people’s movement, the same
covert operators were used in liquidating him.
A couple of days
later the police produced four people who claimed to have done the murder. The
police said, the knife used was found on them. Which murderer would keep the
knife with them for two days ? In an obvious bid to cover their tracks the
police got the four to deny any connection with themselves. These same four have
a notorious record of murder and mayhem as part of the vigilante groups created
by the police. It is, infact, these same monsters who were responsible for the
brutal murder and cutting up of the body of Belli Lalitha into 17 pieces. She
was a young cultural activist and sympathiser of the PW. Also, Naidu has refused
to order a judicial probe into the incident. If his hands are clean, why is he
afraid of a probe into the gruesome incident ?
The police by killing
even civil liberties activists and lawyers are making a mockery of even the
limited democratic space. Those who talk of taking the peaceful path and oppose
violence must explain why even peaceful civil liberties activists are targeted.
It is quite obvious. In AP, unless you are with the government, either openly or
tacitly, you can become one of its targets. The killing of Purushotham as also
the ruthless firing on the opposition rally a month earlier, shows that legal
opposition is becoming more and more impossible.
In condemnation of
this murder, there was a massive rally in Hyderabad the next day, in which all
opposition parties participated. The chairman of the National Human Rights
Commission, Justice Verma, has issued a show cause notice to the AP government.
Amnesty International has issued a statement condemning the incident. Also the
All India Bar Association has condemned the killing. A huge funeral procession
is to take place in his home town.
1-12-2000 |
