On Oct. 20, 2004 the Courts awarded life sentence to 5 innocent peasants from the Bhamragadh tehsil of Gadchirolli district. They were implicated in a false case involving the death of one policman. Of the five one is a widowed mother of two little children.

They have been implicated as Naxalites and were arrested under the earlier TADA. Though lapsed, the earlier cases continue. They were ordinary peasants picked up from the area after the firing at the Lohari police station in which one policeman was killed. They were all from poor peasant families leading their hand-to-mouth existence through agriculture. The two young daughters of the jailed Chainni Mucca Pullo are now as good as orphaned.

After the firing at the Lohari PS vast number of peasants of Bhamragard district were implicated in false cases and many had to go to far-away Nagpur for their cases, at huge expense. This took place as far back as 1992. In the process thay have been reduced to extreme poverty having had to sell their entire farm animals to bear the court expenses. Many are in a state of starvation. Actually in 1992 due to conflict within the police forces itself firing took place when one policeman was killed. A similar incident took place in Bhamragadh Police Station in April 2002. That policeman was immediately transferred. These incidents occur due to the unrest amongst the ordinary policemen as a result of the autocratic and arbitrary functioning of the top police officials with their juniors. Now, to hide their own shortcomings the administration has implicated five innocent peasants.

It is, in fact, such acts of harassment of the poor peasants of any region that result in increasing support to the Naxalites. The people are bound to feel that to excruciating poverty, for which nothing has been done over the decades, is being added the harassment of the establishment. Quite naturally to them the Naxalites come as a hope for a better future. There is utmost need for the people of the country to oppose such inhumane actions which is often worse than what occurred during the British Raj.