Stop Encounter Killings in the name of countering Maoism!
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We strongly condemn the recent killings of senior CPI (Maoist) leaders Sakhamuri Appa Rao and S. Kondal Reddy in encounters by the Andhra Pradesh police.
While the AP police have claimed that they were killed in gun battles in two different incidents in Prakasam and Warangal districts, there are strong grounds to believe that the two Maoist leaders were first arrested in Maharashtra, taken back to AP and then shot in cold blood.
The use of assassination, kidnapping and torture by the forces of the Indian State to contain the Maoist insurgency is not new or surprising but it remains even now, as before, an illegal, immoral and reprehensible strategy.
Firstly, the use of such methods by the Indian police, paramilitary forces or army - under whatever pretext- go against basic provisions of the Indian Constitution and puts them on par with ordinary criminals or even terrorists. The fact that the Maoists do not believe in the Indian Constitution does not mean the Indian government should also abandon its commitment to the only consensus document that gives it its own legitimacy. The Indian State has a duty to uphold the Constitution, irrespective of the opponents it faces, and failure to do so robs it of its entire claim to represent Indian law.
Secondly, there is enough evidence to show that the use of such dirty methods, once justified by the political masters, unfortunately becomes a bad habit making the Indian security forces a threat to the lives of millions of ordinary Indian citizens. The fact that India has one of the worlds highest numbers of custodial deaths and ranks extremely high in the list of countries using torture is testimony to this dubious phenomenon. The people at the receiving end of such violations of law by the Indian State on a day-to-day basis are the Dalit, Adivasi, Muslim, poor communities as also the people of Kashmir and the North-East and this is completely unacceptable.
We demand that the Indian government put an immediate end to the use of abduction, torture and fake encounter killings to tackle the Maoist and other armed insurgencies. Lawless governance and impunity for wrongdoers in uniform leads to loss of faith in democracy. The institutional failures that give rise to insurgencies also need to be understood and tackled in a political manner for any lasting solutions.
While the AP police have claimed that they were killed in gun battles in two different incidents in Prakasam and Warangal districts, there are strong grounds to believe that the two Maoist leaders were first arrested in Maharashtra, taken back to AP and then shot in cold blood.
The use of assassination, kidnapping and torture by the forces of the Indian State to contain the Maoist insurgency is not new or surprising but it remains even now, as before, an illegal, immoral and reprehensible strategy.
Firstly, the use of such methods by the Indian police, paramilitary forces or army - under whatever pretext- go against basic provisions of the Indian Constitution and puts them on par with ordinary criminals or even terrorists. The fact that the Maoists do not believe in the Indian Constitution does not mean the Indian government should also abandon its commitment to the only consensus document that gives it its own legitimacy. The Indian State has a duty to uphold the Constitution, irrespective of the opponents it faces, and failure to do so robs it of its entire claim to represent Indian law.
Secondly, there is enough evidence to show that the use of such dirty methods, once justified by the political masters, unfortunately becomes a bad habit making the Indian security forces a threat to the lives of millions of ordinary Indian citizens. The fact that India has one of the worlds highest numbers of custodial deaths and ranks extremely high in the list of countries using torture is testimony to this dubious phenomenon. The people at the receiving end of such violations of law by the Indian State on a day-to-day basis are the Dalit, Adivasi, Muslim, poor communities as also the people of Kashmir and the North-East and this is completely unacceptable.
We demand that the Indian government put an immediate end to the use of abduction, torture and fake encounter killings to tackle the Maoist and other armed insurgencies. Lawless governance and impunity for wrongdoers in uniform leads to loss of faith in democracy. The institutional failures that give rise to insurgencies also need to be understood and tackled in a political manner for any lasting solutions.
60 Signatures
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Ashim Jain
- Comments
- People who feel they are superior to others are actually lower humans with a high ego. Hope govt officers will take transparent, democratic decisions and not tarnish the country's image. Loss of even one innocent life is an unimaginable sin.
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amit bhaduri
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Ravi Hemadri
- Comments
- Stop extra-judicial killings, whatever the case
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Aseem Shrivastava
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Rabin Chakraborty
- Comments
- В
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Dilip Simeon
- Comments
- State lawlessness encourages the growth of private armies
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Pothik Ghosh
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Sumanta Banerjee
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sadhan roy chowdhury
- Comments
- let us hope that the state shall show its human face
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Prashant Bhushan
- Comments
- В
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Rashmi Varma
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amit sengupta
- Comments
- so how many criminal politicians and communal fascists with blood on t heir hands have been killed in an encounter? stop extra-constitutional encounters immediately, there will be more blood on your hands
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Subir Sinha
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Sadiq Naqvi
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Aritra Bhattacharya
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Afthab Elalth
- Comments
- В
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Kaustav
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premangsu
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Manas Joardar
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Haridas
- Comments
- В
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Hindol Bhattacharjee
- Comments
- Shame on Indian Democracy
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Anurag Singh
- Comments
- I have been shooting in AP for almost a decade.
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Prabash Ranjan Sahoo
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chirantan kumar
- Comments
- encounters (the dictionary meaning) sometomes can not be avoided, forging fake encounters can always be avoided. if we, as a nation, are going through a debate on whether death sentence should be there or not, we must not allow the same from back door. two reasons why fake encounters should not be forged- 1) we must not give arbitrary powers to the police or other authorities by avoiding constitutional norms, and 2) if there is a problem, there may be other solutions. what is needed is to look into the causes of the problems.
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Arindam Banerjee
- Comments
- В
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Karen Gabriel
- Comments
- Shame on the Indian Government
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Sharanya
- Comments
- The State loses all moral authority to democracy if it engages in such brutal physical elimination of Maoist leaders. Does our State not have faith in its own judicial systems ?
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Tanvi Gadhia
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Pratyush Chandra
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tg
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sujay basu
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Balaji Narasimhan
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dipanjan rai chaudhuri
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Uma. K P
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Koel Das
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umar khalid
- Comments
- the indian state has blood on its hands.
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Deepankar Basu
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ravi
- Comments
- В
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pinaki chaudhuri
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P T Manolakos
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Nisha Biswas
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Atreyi Dasgupta
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Siddhartha Mitra
- Comments
- NYC, USA
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ROHIT JAIN
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Sabyasachi Deb
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suresh nautiyal, himalayan peoples forum
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Prabhat Sharan
- Comments
- The encounter killings are nothing but a blood-drenched facade of the State to pulverize people's movement.
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Amitadyuti Kumar
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abhijit
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Partha Sen
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60
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