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According to these
reports (Jansatta, NDTV, and local CPI district president) people are being
compelled to join the "Saalva Judum" rallies by brute force, and the homes of
those refusing to do so are being burnt and their crops destroyed. Youth are
particularly being terrorize into consent, and any young person refusing to join
the "Saalva Judum" rallies is being assumed to be a Naxalite supporter, and
being terrorized and tortured accordingly.
According to an
independent report, even unmarried young women are being forced to wear
‘Sindoor’ in order to lay pretence to a male protector. There was a heart
rending story of an Aanganwadi worker, named Soniya, who was beaten up by the
Jawans of the Naga battalions, tied up with ropes at the ankle, dragged in this
condition to the police station and forced to spend the night in the lock-up
along with men, all on the suspicion that she was a Naxalite supporter. Similar
story of excesses committed on women by police, CRPF and Naga forces have been
recounted by NGO activists from Dantewada.
According to one
estimate more than twelve thousand villagers, participants in the "Saalva Judum"
campaign, have been displaced form their villages and lodged in police protected
camps in the name of security. Conditions in these camps are sub human, one
family is given one tent to live in. Sleeping arrangements are only on wet
ground protected only by a rubber sheet. There is no adequate arrangement of
drinking water, no lighting, no health facility, and food is provided by the
police department. There have been several outbreaks of diarrhea, and several
children have succumbed to these.
There are reports
that indicate that any one who is suspected of being a supporter of Naxalites or
a Sangam member is brutally tortured, beaten and in many cases killed. Through a
combination of a carrot and stick approach, many people are being prodded into
playing the role of informers for the police departments. In this way there are
indications that normal democratic and civil rights have ceased to exist in the
Bijapur and Bhairamgarh, Nilashnaar, Kotrapally and Gangalur area.
Several villages in
the area where "Saalva Judum" is going on are reported to have become devoid of
male members, who have either run away or being forced into the camps. The
meagre seasonal agriculture of the adivasis is being severely compromised in
this way, and with the break down of economic life, life and livelihood seems to
be seriously threatened.
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