RAIPUR, India | Sat May 21, 2011 5:58am EDT
RAIPUR, India (Reuters) - Eleven people stormed into a house in a central Indian village and assaulted a woman whom they accused of witchcraft, blinding her and her husband by stabbing them in the eyes with scissors, police said on Saturday.
The incident took place on Friday in the Raipur district of Chhattisgarh state. Police later arrested 10 suspects.
A family in Khaira village had been having money troubles and health problems, which they blamed on a 45-year-old woman, according to S.S. Baghel, a local police officer.
"The accused blamed the alleged witchcraft power of the lady for their problems and raided her house on Friday morning," Baghel told Reuters by phone. "First they beat her up and then a few of them held her hands and legs and then inserted scissors into both her eyes."
When her husband tried to intervene, the group turned on him and inserted scissors into his eyes as well, Baghel added. A doctor at a local hospital said the couple would likely never be able to see again.
The brutalities related to witchcraft, mainly against women, are not new for the interior illiterate pockets of Chhattisgarh, where woman accused of witchcraft are often killed or paraded them naked.
Chhattisgarh state passed the Witchcraft (Prevention) Act in 2005 to crack down on offenders. But the law has hardly made an impact in tribal areas, where atrocities against women accused of witchcraft still flourish and the majority of cases go unreported.
(Reporting by Sujeet Kumar Editing by Matthias Williams and Alex Richardson)
Saturday, May 21, 2011
India Maoists kill seven police, call for general strike
RAIPUR, India | Wed May 18, 2011 12:29pm IST
RAIPUR, India May 18 (Reuters) - Seven Indian policemen were killed in a Maoist rebel landmine blast in the eastern state of Chhattisgarh, police said on Wednesday, as the insurgents called for a 48-hour strike in six states across the country.
The Maoists are active in the country's poor, rural areas, and widespread violence in mineral-rich eastern districts has worried investors and disrupted mining and rail transport.
The landmine attack, the latest salvo in a four-decades long insurgency that has killed thousands, came late on Tuesday hours after the rebels called for a two-day general strike from May 21 to demand the release of three of their leaders.
"It was a powerful blast that ripped the roof off a vehicle carrying paramilitary personnel. Five men of the CRPF (federal police) second battalion were killed on the spot and two died a few hours later," district police chief Ankit Garg told Reuters.
Last April, the government faced strong criticism that security forces were ill-prepared to deal with the insurgent threat after 75 police were killed in an ambush in Chhattisgarh that led to the home minister tendering his resignation.
A recent crackdown on rebel-controlled areas has seen a decrease in attacks, raising hopes the government was winning the battle against what the prime minister has described as India's biggest internal security threat.
The Maoists' violent campaign against the government began as a peasant revolt in the late 1960s. The rebels say they are fighting for the rights of the poor and the disenfranchised. (Reporting by Sujeet Kumar; Writing by Henry Foy; Editing by Robert Birsel)
RAIPUR, India May 18 (Reuters) - Seven Indian policemen were killed in a Maoist rebel landmine blast in the eastern state of Chhattisgarh, police said on Wednesday, as the insurgents called for a 48-hour strike in six states across the country.
The Maoists are active in the country's poor, rural areas, and widespread violence in mineral-rich eastern districts has worried investors and disrupted mining and rail transport.
The landmine attack, the latest salvo in a four-decades long insurgency that has killed thousands, came late on Tuesday hours after the rebels called for a two-day general strike from May 21 to demand the release of three of their leaders.
"It was a powerful blast that ripped the roof off a vehicle carrying paramilitary personnel. Five men of the CRPF (federal police) second battalion were killed on the spot and two died a few hours later," district police chief Ankit Garg told Reuters.
Last April, the government faced strong criticism that security forces were ill-prepared to deal with the insurgent threat after 75 police were killed in an ambush in Chhattisgarh that led to the home minister tendering his resignation.
A recent crackdown on rebel-controlled areas has seen a decrease in attacks, raising hopes the government was winning the battle against what the prime minister has described as India's biggest internal security threat.
The Maoists' violent campaign against the government began as a peasant revolt in the late 1960s. The rebels say they are fighting for the rights of the poor and the disenfranchised. (Reporting by Sujeet Kumar; Writing by Henry Foy; Editing by Robert Birsel)
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Battle for Bastar: tribal legislator threatens to dislodge BJP
By Sujeet Kumar
Jagdalpur (Chhattisgarh), May 7, 2011 (IANS) A tribal politician who has never attended school and can neither read nor write is making Chhattisgarh's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) struggle to retain its "safe" Bastar Lok Sabha seat in the state's Maoist stronghold.
With just a day to go for the Bastar by-election Sunday, the Congress is hopeful that Kawasi Lakhma, the 55-year-old Gond tribal who has won the Konta assembly seat in the region thrice, will dislodge the BJP that has been representing Bastar in the Lok Sabha for four terms - and with huge margins.
The BJP has been dominating Bastar, tagged as one of the most violence-prone Lok Sabha constituency, for a while. It has not only been winning the Lok Sabha seat but also holds seven of the eight assembly seats from the sprawling constituency. The eighth has been held by Lakhma, who won it the first time in 1998, then in 2003 and then in 2008.
Now, the BJP admits, that easy ride to power has become a political obstacle course in a region few politicians dare to campaign in.
"No doubt, Lakhma has given us sleepless nights. We were expecting an easy ride till last week but now it's a toss-up between the BJP and the Congress," said a senior BJP leader.
"All credit goes to Lakhma, whose appeal 'give me a chance' is making a deep impression on voters across all the eight assembly segments, mainly in vast forested areas. Most leaders of all parties stayed away from campaigning because of fear of Maoists," the leader, who is coordinating the party campaign, admitted.
Based in Jagdalpur, headquarters of the Bastar region, about 300 km south of capital Raipur, the BJP leader said the Congress nominee, always in a dhoti and kurta, had seriously threatened the party's poll prospects.
"The discouraging inputs from interiors about the mood of the voters had forced the BJP to put all efforts and resources to save the tribal reserved Bastar seat, which the party has not lost since 1998."
While BJP leaders fret and fume, Lakhma is remarkably sanguine, even detached.
"I am not much bothered about victory or loss. The party instructed me to challenge the BJP at its stronghold and I am happy to mess up the battle despite the fact that I don't have the same back-up of funds and resources as the BJP," Lakhma told IANS.
"The good thing for me is all Congress factions got united in the battle for Bastar. If I manage to produce an upset here, it will be the perfect beginning for the end of the BJP regime under which poor tribals of Bastar have suffered a lot," Lakhma said, referring to the rise in civilian killings and people moving out of their ancestral villages after December 2003 when the BJP came to power.
The by-election has been necessitated by the death of BJP MP Baliram Kashyap in March. He had been winning the seat for the BJP for the last four elections and the party has now fielded his son Dinesh Kashyap in a bid to cash in on his popularity.
There are eight candidates in the fray for the seat that has 1,716 polling booths in four districts - Dantewada, Bijapur, Bastar and Narayanpur.
The Election Commission has relocated 200 polling booths from Maoist-commanded forest interiors to areas close to police stations and paramilitary camps as the roads in deep interiors are loaded with multiple-layer landmines for years.
(Sujeet Kumar can be contacted at sujeet.k@ians.in)
Jagdalpur (Chhattisgarh), May 7, 2011 (IANS) A tribal politician who has never attended school and can neither read nor write is making Chhattisgarh's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) struggle to retain its "safe" Bastar Lok Sabha seat in the state's Maoist stronghold.
With just a day to go for the Bastar by-election Sunday, the Congress is hopeful that Kawasi Lakhma, the 55-year-old Gond tribal who has won the Konta assembly seat in the region thrice, will dislodge the BJP that has been representing Bastar in the Lok Sabha for four terms - and with huge margins.
The BJP has been dominating Bastar, tagged as one of the most violence-prone Lok Sabha constituency, for a while. It has not only been winning the Lok Sabha seat but also holds seven of the eight assembly seats from the sprawling constituency. The eighth has been held by Lakhma, who won it the first time in 1998, then in 2003 and then in 2008.
Now, the BJP admits, that easy ride to power has become a political obstacle course in a region few politicians dare to campaign in.
"No doubt, Lakhma has given us sleepless nights. We were expecting an easy ride till last week but now it's a toss-up between the BJP and the Congress," said a senior BJP leader.
"All credit goes to Lakhma, whose appeal 'give me a chance' is making a deep impression on voters across all the eight assembly segments, mainly in vast forested areas. Most leaders of all parties stayed away from campaigning because of fear of Maoists," the leader, who is coordinating the party campaign, admitted.
Based in Jagdalpur, headquarters of the Bastar region, about 300 km south of capital Raipur, the BJP leader said the Congress nominee, always in a dhoti and kurta, had seriously threatened the party's poll prospects.
"The discouraging inputs from interiors about the mood of the voters had forced the BJP to put all efforts and resources to save the tribal reserved Bastar seat, which the party has not lost since 1998."
While BJP leaders fret and fume, Lakhma is remarkably sanguine, even detached.
"I am not much bothered about victory or loss. The party instructed me to challenge the BJP at its stronghold and I am happy to mess up the battle despite the fact that I don't have the same back-up of funds and resources as the BJP," Lakhma told IANS.
"The good thing for me is all Congress factions got united in the battle for Bastar. If I manage to produce an upset here, it will be the perfect beginning for the end of the BJP regime under which poor tribals of Bastar have suffered a lot," Lakhma said, referring to the rise in civilian killings and people moving out of their ancestral villages after December 2003 when the BJP came to power.
The by-election has been necessitated by the death of BJP MP Baliram Kashyap in March. He had been winning the seat for the BJP for the last four elections and the party has now fielded his son Dinesh Kashyap in a bid to cash in on his popularity.
There are eight candidates in the fray for the seat that has 1,716 polling booths in four districts - Dantewada, Bijapur, Bastar and Narayanpur.
The Election Commission has relocated 200 polling booths from Maoist-commanded forest interiors to areas close to police stations and paramilitary camps as the roads in deep interiors are loaded with multiple-layer landmines for years.
(Sujeet Kumar can be contacted at sujeet.k@ians.in)
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Father unaware son has been a legislator for 10 years
By Sujeet Kumar
Friday, February 20, 2009 9:32:41 PM by IANS
Raipur, Feb 21 (IANS) Kawasi Lakhma has been a Chhattisgarh legislator for the past 10 years, but his 90-year-old father remains unaware of his status and hopes that Lakhma would return to the village and plough the fields again.
“My village, Nagaras in Dantewada district, is probably one of the country’s most poverty-stricken villages, where the Maoist insurgency has left people out of the mainstream. I am a rare person in the village who wears a clean dress after becoming an MLA (legislator) in 1998, and my father thinks I must be involved in criminal acts to be able to buy good clothes,” said Lakhma, a Congress legislator.
Nagaras is located some 450 km south of capital Raipur in the state’s southern Bastar region.
Lakhma, 53, who was returned to the state assembly for the third time in the polls last November, says his father still holds meetings of his relatives to persuade his legislator son to return to the family’s traditional work - ploughing the field and plucking Tendu leaves used for rolling beedis (locally-manufactured cigarettes).
A Gond tribal who never attended school and remains illiterate, Lakhma said: “Whenever I come to capital Raipur to attend the assembly session, my father Kawasi Arma convenes a meeting at my village of relatives and asks them to persuade me to shun criminal activities and help the family in cultivation.”
“Neither my father, nor my three brothers nor my wife ever attended school,” he said. A few children in his village have started going to school now, the legislator said.
“Whenever any leader visits my village, my father asks him to persuade me to return to the family’s traditional work.”
Lakhma’s father does not even share his son’s political affiliations.
“When I was contesting assembly polls in 1998, I asked my father to go and vote. When he returned, I asked him which party he voted for. He said he found a Poongar (Gondi word for BJP’s poll symbol lotus) on the ballot that was looking nice, so I went for it.”
(Sujeet Kumar can be contacted at sujeet.k@ians.in)
Friday, February 20, 2009 9:32:41 PM by IANS
Raipur, Feb 21 (IANS) Kawasi Lakhma has been a Chhattisgarh legislator for the past 10 years, but his 90-year-old father remains unaware of his status and hopes that Lakhma would return to the village and plough the fields again.
“My village, Nagaras in Dantewada district, is probably one of the country’s most poverty-stricken villages, where the Maoist insurgency has left people out of the mainstream. I am a rare person in the village who wears a clean dress after becoming an MLA (legislator) in 1998, and my father thinks I must be involved in criminal acts to be able to buy good clothes,” said Lakhma, a Congress legislator.
Nagaras is located some 450 km south of capital Raipur in the state’s southern Bastar region.
Lakhma, 53, who was returned to the state assembly for the third time in the polls last November, says his father still holds meetings of his relatives to persuade his legislator son to return to the family’s traditional work - ploughing the field and plucking Tendu leaves used for rolling beedis (locally-manufactured cigarettes).
A Gond tribal who never attended school and remains illiterate, Lakhma said: “Whenever I come to capital Raipur to attend the assembly session, my father Kawasi Arma convenes a meeting at my village of relatives and asks them to persuade me to shun criminal activities and help the family in cultivation.”
“Neither my father, nor my three brothers nor my wife ever attended school,” he said. A few children in his village have started going to school now, the legislator said.
“Whenever any leader visits my village, my father asks him to persuade me to return to the family’s traditional work.”
Lakhma’s father does not even share his son’s political affiliations.
“When I was contesting assembly polls in 1998, I asked my father to go and vote. When he returned, I asked him which party he voted for. He said he found a Poongar (Gondi word for BJP’s poll symbol lotus) on the ballot that was looking nice, so I went for it.”
(Sujeet Kumar can be contacted at sujeet.k@ians.in)
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
By-poll ahead, but no one's campaigning in Bastar interiors
Sujeet Kumar
Raipur, May 3, 2011 (IANS) They talk big, but no politician, not even the candidates, are campaigning in the interiors of Bastar for fear of Maoists ahead of the Lok Sabha by-poll in the Chhattisgarh constituency May 8."None of the eight candidates in the fray, besides star campaigners of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and opposition Congress, has so far hit the extreme forested roads that are full of landmines," a police official in Jagdalpur, headquarters of the insurgency-riddled Bastar, told IANS.
"Despite all our assurance to provide security for campaigning, no politician is risking his life and either focusing on campaigning in urban areas or holding rallies around the villages of national highways, state highways or tribal hamlets based in the vicinity of police stations or paramilitary forces camps."
Communist Party of India (CPI) candidate Rama Sodhi said: "Leaders have not dared to visit the extreme interiors though they claim to campaign in remote areas defying Maoist dominance.
"Chief Minister Raman Singh addressed a rally at Dornapal Monday, which was described as 'a rally in the Maoist bastion', but actually the rally was held at the national highway and also close to the camp of paramilitary forces."
Congress nominee Kawasi Lakhma, who has given sleepless nights to the BJP, which has won the seat the last four times, remarked: "I told my leaders and cadres, don't go into forested areas for campaigning from where you can't come out before sunset because I know the risk in Maoist-dominated areas after sunset."
Former chief minister Ajit Jogi who is leading the Congress campaign for his diehard supporter Lakhma has not addressed a single rally in the deep areas of Dantewada and Bijapur districts, though he too claims to have held several rallies in the Maoist heartland.
"Whatever the rallies he has addressed are all in safe areas. Fact is no politician from any party has shown the guts to campaign in the extreme interiors where Maoists are undisputedly the rulers," a tribal politician and former minister told IANS on condition of anonymity.
Officials at the police headquarters say Maoists have buried landmines in a 25,000 sq km area in Bastar region that comprises five districts - Dantewada, Bijapur, Narayanpur, Bastar and Kanker.
The Bastar region is made up of two tribal reserved parliamentary constituencies - Bastar and Kanker - which have witnessed the killings of about 2,000 people in the past decade, including 1,000 civilians.
The by-poll for the Bastar seat was necessitated after the death of veteran BJP tribal leader and MP Baliram Kashyap in March. The BJP has fielded Kashyap's son while Congress nominee Lakhma is legislator from the Konta assembly seat, one of the eight assembly segments that form the Bastar parliamentary constituency.
=============
Raipur, May 3, 2011 (IANS) They talk big, but no politician, not even the candidates, are campaigning in the interiors of Bastar for fear of Maoists ahead of the Lok Sabha by-poll in the Chhattisgarh constituency May 8."None of the eight candidates in the fray, besides star campaigners of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and opposition Congress, has so far hit the extreme forested roads that are full of landmines," a police official in Jagdalpur, headquarters of the insurgency-riddled Bastar, told IANS.
"Despite all our assurance to provide security for campaigning, no politician is risking his life and either focusing on campaigning in urban areas or holding rallies around the villages of national highways, state highways or tribal hamlets based in the vicinity of police stations or paramilitary forces camps."
Communist Party of India (CPI) candidate Rama Sodhi said: "Leaders have not dared to visit the extreme interiors though they claim to campaign in remote areas defying Maoist dominance.
"Chief Minister Raman Singh addressed a rally at Dornapal Monday, which was described as 'a rally in the Maoist bastion', but actually the rally was held at the national highway and also close to the camp of paramilitary forces."
Congress nominee Kawasi Lakhma, who has given sleepless nights to the BJP, which has won the seat the last four times, remarked: "I told my leaders and cadres, don't go into forested areas for campaigning from where you can't come out before sunset because I know the risk in Maoist-dominated areas after sunset."
Former chief minister Ajit Jogi who is leading the Congress campaign for his diehard supporter Lakhma has not addressed a single rally in the deep areas of Dantewada and Bijapur districts, though he too claims to have held several rallies in the Maoist heartland.
"Whatever the rallies he has addressed are all in safe areas. Fact is no politician from any party has shown the guts to campaign in the extreme interiors where Maoists are undisputedly the rulers," a tribal politician and former minister told IANS on condition of anonymity.
Officials at the police headquarters say Maoists have buried landmines in a 25,000 sq km area in Bastar region that comprises five districts - Dantewada, Bijapur, Narayanpur, Bastar and Kanker.
The Bastar region is made up of two tribal reserved parliamentary constituencies - Bastar and Kanker - which have witnessed the killings of about 2,000 people in the past decade, including 1,000 civilians.
The by-poll for the Bastar seat was necessitated after the death of veteran BJP tribal leader and MP Baliram Kashyap in March. The BJP has fielded Kashyap's son while Congress nominee Lakhma is legislator from the Konta assembly seat, one of the eight assembly segments that form the Bastar parliamentary constituency.
=============
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Lucky to get Rs.40 for 12 hours work on International Labour Day
Lucky to get Rs.40 for 12 hours work on International Labour Day
By Sujeet Kumar
Raipur, May 1, 2011 (IANS) For Purnima Bai, 50, International Labour Day on Sunday did not make any difference to her search for work at a labourers' mart here. While the world celebrated workers' rights and pride, Purnima was hired for a 12-hour job for just Rs.40.
For the past four years, Purnima has been travelling about 45 km daily by train to the labourers' mart at Gandhi Maidan in this Chhattisgarh capital to find some work to take care of her five-member family.
The mart here, near the Congress headquarters, is one of the several such places in Raipur where daily-wage workers are hired every morning.
Purnima considered herself lucky as she, along with her two sons, had to jostle with about 150 other men and women to find an employer.
"I am lucky. It's a ground levelling work in Shanti Nagar colony. I will get Rs.40 for this 12-hour work," Purnima told IANS.
"But my sons, Vijay (22) and Ajay (19) have not been picked up, I pray they too get hired. I don't want to return home with just Rs.40," she said.
Like Purnima, there are about one million workers in Chhattisgarh's unorganinsed sector despite trader union leaders regularly taking out rallies demanding better job conditions and pay for them.
"The condition of workers in the unorganised sector is worst in the state. There is hardly any scheme to protect their interests," said C.R. Bakshi, a senior leader of the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) in Chhattisgarh.
According to him, labour contractors are "given complete freedom to exploit the misery and poverty of workers who earns Rs.40-50 a day if they get hired".
The Chhattisgarh government has set the minimum daily wage of Rs.106 for a worker in the unorganised sector, but 75 percent of them hardly get work on all the seven days, said Bakshi.
He added that half of the remaining 25 percent does not get more than Rs.50 a day as the workers agree for any price to avoid starvation in the family.
Tapan Chatterjee, former chief of Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC) in Chhattisgarh, said: "Unorganised sector workers have been left at the mercy of contractors and individuals in all the 18 districts.
"The most concerning factor is that trade union leaders are not exerting enough pressure on the government to ensure that workers earn a respectable amount daily."
End========
By Sujeet Kumar
Raipur, May 1, 2011 (IANS) For Purnima Bai, 50, International Labour Day on Sunday did not make any difference to her search for work at a labourers' mart here. While the world celebrated workers' rights and pride, Purnima was hired for a 12-hour job for just Rs.40.
For the past four years, Purnima has been travelling about 45 km daily by train to the labourers' mart at Gandhi Maidan in this Chhattisgarh capital to find some work to take care of her five-member family.
The mart here, near the Congress headquarters, is one of the several such places in Raipur where daily-wage workers are hired every morning.
Purnima considered herself lucky as she, along with her two sons, had to jostle with about 150 other men and women to find an employer.
"I am lucky. It's a ground levelling work in Shanti Nagar colony. I will get Rs.40 for this 12-hour work," Purnima told IANS.
"But my sons, Vijay (22) and Ajay (19) have not been picked up, I pray they too get hired. I don't want to return home with just Rs.40," she said.
Like Purnima, there are about one million workers in Chhattisgarh's unorganinsed sector despite trader union leaders regularly taking out rallies demanding better job conditions and pay for them.
"The condition of workers in the unorganised sector is worst in the state. There is hardly any scheme to protect their interests," said C.R. Bakshi, a senior leader of the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) in Chhattisgarh.
According to him, labour contractors are "given complete freedom to exploit the misery and poverty of workers who earns Rs.40-50 a day if they get hired".
The Chhattisgarh government has set the minimum daily wage of Rs.106 for a worker in the unorganised sector, but 75 percent of them hardly get work on all the seven days, said Bakshi.
He added that half of the remaining 25 percent does not get more than Rs.50 a day as the workers agree for any price to avoid starvation in the family.
Tapan Chatterjee, former chief of Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC) in Chhattisgarh, said: "Unorganised sector workers have been left at the mercy of contractors and individuals in all the 18 districts.
"The most concerning factor is that trade union leaders are not exerting enough pressure on the government to ensure that workers earn a respectable amount daily."
End========
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