New Delhi: Brinda Karat, Polit Bureau member of the CPI(M) has written a letter to the Chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission strongly protesting the closure by the NHRC of the complaint she had made in 2016 related to the mob lynching of a 12-year-old boy Imtiaz Khan and his uncle M. Ansari in the Latehar district of Jharkhand. “The NHRC is failing in its duty to protect the human rights of the families of the victims in this case,” she said.
 
The duo was thrashed and hanged to die on a tree in a nearby forest in Latehar, Jharkhand in 2016. It was suspected that cow vigilantes had murdered them when the two were travelling to a cattle fair to sell a batch of oxen. The accused were let off despite eyewitness accounts.
 
“It is extremely disappointing to learn that the Commission has closed the said case concerning the compensation for the next kin of M. Ansari and Imtiaz Khan, who were victims of brutal lynching case in Latehar, Jharkhand. The Rs. 1 lakh compensation offered to the families is an affront to justice and, therefore, it was not taken by the family,” Karat’s letter read. The letter was sent to NHRC on Oct 27.
 
Besides asking for the compensation amount to be increased, Karat questioned NHRC’s blind trust that the family of victims had accepted their report. “Considering that the Commission itself has taken two years to enquire into the case, it is unfair that simply because the family has not answered within four weeks you closed the case.  There may be valid reasons such as migration for work etc., which made it difficult to respond within the stipulated time.  It certainly does not mean that the Commission can take for granted that the family has accepted this report,” she wrote.
 
Full text of the letter:
 
This is with reference to the letter dated 27.10.2018, Case No. 494/34/22/2016 received by me from the National Human Rights Commission, Law Division.
 
It is extremely disappointing to learn that the Commission has closed the said case concerning the compensation for the next kin of M. Ansari and Imtiaz Khan, who were victims of brutal lynching case in Latehar, Jharkhand. The Rs. 1 lakh compensation offered to the families is an affront to justice and, therefore, it was not taken by the family.  Surely, the job of the National Human Rights Commission is to ensure fair compensation for families who have been torn apart by brutal lynchings as in these two cases.  It is shocking that the NHRC has not insisted that the meagre amount of Rs. 1 lakh offered by the Jharkhand Government should be increased. 
 
Secondly, the case has been closed saying that the family did not respond within four weeks of your sending the report.  Considering that the Commission itself has taken two years to enquire into the case, it is unfair that simply because the family has not answered within four weeks you closed the case.  There may be valid reasons such as migration for work etc., which made it difficult to respond within the stipulated time.  It certainly does not mean that the Commission can take for granted that the family has accepted this report. 
 
I request you to reconsider the matter to ensure that the victims’ families are given adequate compensation and justice.
 
Read Also:
Latehar Lynching: A Saga of Cover-up, Political Connections and Police Negligence
Jharkhand: Justice a Distant Dream for Latehar Lynching Victims
How Jharkhand Police sabotaged the Latehar Lynching Case
 

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Two cattle traders, Mazloom Ansari (35) and Imtiaz Khan (11), were abducted in Latehar in March 2016, beaten mercilessly and strung from a tree after they fell unconscious. The victims were waylaid while they were walking eight oxen to sell at a cattle fair. All the accused are now out on bail and the case against them is moving at a snail’s pace. A Newsclick team met the family of the Mazloom Ansari. A report by Tarique Anwar and Kushal. 

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Jharkhand lynching: Video grab shows ASI Gope, his face to camera; Gope at station (right) and in-charge T P Kushwaha. Subham Dutta

According to the report in the Express, as the four were lynched over five hours during the early hours of May 18, present on the spot alongside a mob was a Deputy Superintendent of police, a Circle Inspector, two Assistant Sub-inspectors and at least 30 policemen.

The Indian Express tracked down two of the policemen who are seen speaking to the mob in videos of the incident and also spoke to several of the eyewitnesses to piece together the sequence of events that ended with the deaths in Shobhapur of Naim (35), Sheikh Sajju (25), Sheikh Siraj (26) and Sheikh Halim (28).

It’s not a case of the police looking the other way; they were in fact watching the lynching unfold in front of their eyes.

“Please, I beg you. Don’t talk to me. I am just a small officer. I was there but I cannot talk to you. Please contact my superiors”, Sashibhusan Gope, the ASI on duty at the Rajnagar station pleaded with the Indian Express correspondent.

Anta Tudu, the mukhiya of Shobhapur, said, “We rushed out of our homes on hearing that the child-lifters had been caught. Police arrived in time and spoke to the villagers for a while, but there was no action on their part. It is sad that such an incident happened.

Meanwhile taking suo moto notice of the lynchings, the National Human Rights Commission has issued a notice to Jharkhand's Director General of Police calling for a detailed report within four weeks.

Read the full Indian Express report.

Also read: Adivasis lynch 7 persons in a day in Jharkhand over child abduction rumours.     
 

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Photo credit: Hindustan Times

The Jharkhand police today disclosed that hundreds of adivasis have lynched seven people in separate incidents across Jharkhand over rumours that child kidnappers were on the prowl in the tribal districts of south Jharkhand.

The rumour-mill has resulted in adivasis along the borders of Seraikela-Kharsawan, East Singhbhum and West Singhbhum districts picking up their traditional weapons and going after strangers.

The seven persons lynched on Thursday included four Muslims and three Hindus from the neighbouring non-tribal areas.
“These are highly superstitious acts that cannot be called communal,” East Singhbhum senior police superintendent of police, Anup T Mathew, told The Hindustan Times.

But the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader Babar Khan insisted that the four Muslim men were no strangers in the area and “there is certainly a different cause for the murder, which police should probe”.

Also read: 3 cattle traders lynched near Jamshedpur city in Jharkhand

Baseless rumour-mongering to incite passions has often been the trigger for communal violence in the past.

Suspecting a communal angle to the killings the relatives of the Muslims have refused to bury the deceased till the killers were arrested and a compensation of Rs. 25 lakh was paid to each of the victims’ families, according to the Hindustan Times report.

Stating that in fact there has been no reported incident of any child abduction in the region, Mathew added that “a massive awareness drive is required to check the attacks and killings.”

The police have been moving from village to village in the adivasi belt announcing on loud speakers that to dispel any fear of child kidnapping.
In the first incident on Thursday, the victims were four Muslim youth, all cattle traders, who were cornered and lynched. When the police tried rescuing the traders, the adivasis attacked them too and damaged their vehicle before fleeing from the place.

In a separate incident later the same day, the adivasis lynched three young men (Hindus), two them brothers and thrashed their grandmother.
 

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A village mob chased the car of a group of cattle traders and lynched three of them near Jamshedpur in a hunt that stretched through Wednesday night and spilled over to Thursday afternoon, the Telegraph has reported.

Those killed were Sheikh Naim, 35, Sheikh Sajju, 25, and Sheikh Siraj, 26. The fate of a fourth, Sheikh Halim, 28, is remains unknown.

Claiming there was no communal angle to the incident, the police said the attack was likely the result of child kidnapping rumours that has been spreading through the region in Jharkhand.

In March last year, two cattle traders had been killed in Latehar in the BJP-ruled state in a suspected instance of cow vigilantism. Last month, a 20-year-old Muslim, Mohammed Shalik was beaten to death in  Jharkhand  for being in love with a Hindu woman

Police said the three deceased along with Shaikh Halim were travelling in a car on Thursday night to purchase cattle which they apparently planned to sell at the Saturday cattle market in the area.

Police sources said a mob of over 100 tried to stop the car after it crossed Hessel village a little after midnight, but it sped way. The crowd chased the car and forced it to a halt in Daru village. The mob beat Naim mercilessly and torched the car while the other three escaped. Around 6.30am, the crowd reached the nearby village of Shobhapur, which has a large Muslim population, in search of the three.

Stopped by Rajnagar OC Tuleswar Khushwaha, who was with an assistant sub-inspector and a constable, the mob assaulted the three policemen and torched their jeep. Another police team took Naim from Daru to the Seraikela subdivisional hospital, where he died.

By 1pm, the mob had traced Sajju and Siraj, who had been given shelter by Sunil Mahto of Shosomauli village, 2km from Shobhapur, and lynched the duo.

"There is no communal aspect," deputy inspector-general of police Prabhat Kumar told the Telegraph.
 

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Image for representation purpose only

Something is amiss in the state of Denmark. The proverbial Shakespearean phrase appears to sum it all.

Yesterday, May Day 2016, more than 300 rural families employed in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme in Jharkhand's Latehar, one of India's poorest districts, have donated their small annual wage increase to prime minister Narendra Modi. The workers attached five rupee notes to a letter addressed to the prime minister that was posted on May Day.

“The government must be really short of money if it is unable to raise NREGA wages to the minimum wage, that too when one third of the rural population is affected by drought,” reads the letter by the workers, noting that the central government had increased their wage this year by only Rs 5, from Rs 162 to Rs 167 earlier in April. This the villagers of this village in Latehar, Jharkand saw as an insult. Rs 167 is Rs 45 below the state minimum wage Rs 212 per day in Jharkhand. There are over 1.1 lakh families in Latehar district working in the scheme under which the government provides 100 days of employment a year to any rural household willing to do manual work – building public works such as roads, ponds, wells. Of this, 43% are women, and 37% are tribals.

Then today, May 2, the very next day, The Times of India and The Indian Express have broken the news that 35 Dalit families, living in Nedali village of Mehsana, just 15 kilometres from Modi’s hometown of Vadnagar have threatened self-immolation  due to the humiliating boycott that they face. The boycott is on account of their struggle for justice under the Atrocities Act — they dared to seek legal actions against alleged atrocities committed by eight members of upper castes in the village—and that is not on in Mehsana. It is this extreme discrimination has forced them to write to the chief minister seeking her leave to immolate themselves in a village just 15 km Modi's home town, Vadanagar. All this while the BJP dominated NDA II government seeks to appropriate Babasaheb Ambedkar and the country as a whole is celebrating Dr BR Ambedkar’s 125th birth anniversary.

Dalits Discriminated in Gujarat
Dalits are not a happy lot in the state of Gujarat. A quick look at the detailed documentation of violence and exclusion suffered by Dalits in the state since January this year reveal sharp and persistent cases of exclusion, violence and a denial of basic rights especially in Mehsana district and even in Sabarkantha.

Only in February this year, Dalit families from Lakshmipura-Bhandu, a small village of Visnagar taluka also in Mehsana ( Mehsana is also the home district of Anandi Patel, chief minister) were ‘not allowed’ to build a toilet! Even with today's reports of this letter seeking permission to self-immolate another one, of a Dalit groom and his family members being attacked and assaulted for ‘daring to ride a horse’ during the marriage procession )Khadol village Sabarkantha were documented by the media. Newspapers say this is the second such incident in 12 days.

In January 2016, on two separate occasions, Dalit sarpanches were not ‘allowed’ to hoist the national flag, the tricolour, on Republic Day.

The government, following the famed Gujarat model, has also passed a controversial land acquisition bill that will deprive small land-owners, farmers, Dalits, Adivais,owners of any say in land acquired by big business and government (April 1, 2016)  but is doing precious little on issue related to the fundamental protection of the rights of all it citizens. The resistance of the Gujarat government to make public the Inquiry Report into the Thangadh firing that left three Dalits dead after Gujarat police officers had used AK-47s to kill peaceful protesters.
 
But this letter written by 35 Dalit families representing a few hundred residents of the village seriously questions the government. The Times of India reports that the letter written by Babubhai Shankarbhai Senma, 46, of Nandali in Kheralu taluka of Mehsana district, addressed to the chief minister, says that Senma families, comprising 35 members, seek permission of self-immolation as members of upper castes have forced all villagers to boycott them. The boycott is in reaction to Senmas seeking legal action against eight upper caste persons under atrocity laws.

 According to the letter accessed by the TOI, Senma, who belongs to Dalit community, had gone to Mehsana district industrial centre to seek a sewing machine for her daughter-in-law, when one of the accused, identified as Jujarji Parmar, had hurled casterelated slurs and slapped him. Following the incident, Senma had approached local police, but no actions were initiated. However, the accused as ked villagers to boycott Senma and other members of his community. Following the direction from the upper caste member, villagers had not only boycotted the Senmas, but also stopped supplying essential commodities to them.

“Senma community members are not being given food grains, water, milk and fodder for their cattle. The villagers have stopped employing Senmas as daily wage labourers. Upper caste community members have issued diktat that if any villager is found employing a member of Senma community , then he too will be boycotted,“ said the letter. Senma alleged in his letter that the upper caste community members have been threatening Dalits to leave the village or face dire consequences.
 “The accused persons are threatening to burn us alive. Despite making several representations to the state administration, no government representative came to meet us. Therefore, please allow us permission for self-immolation," said Senma.
 

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