Organization: Penn State University
Date: Wednesday, 8 Apr 1992 17:41:15 EDT
From: <GXS100@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: psu.india,soc.culture.indian
Subject: INDIA ALERT appeal

  INDIA ALERT, a human rights organization, has reported on two separate
      incidents calling for letters of protest to the appropriate state
      Governors. The group has suggested the following format which includes
      the gist of the bloody incidents themselves. Please feel free to make
      changes as deemed fit and mail your letters directly to the Governors,
      if so motivated.
                                          - Girish Subramaniam, Penn State.
 (The documents were directly uploaded onto the system after scanning and
      therefore are not well formatted.)
#1...........................................................................
Governor of Andhra Pradesh
Raj Bhawan
Hyderabad, A.P.
Your Excellency,
   I am writing to express my outrage at this most recent incident of police
violation
of human rights in Andhra Pradesh. On February 4, Dr. Balagopal, General
Secretary of the Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee, was attacked by a
group
of armed men, apparently hired by police, in Kottagudem, Khammam `district. He
was beated so badly that he had to be hospitalized with serious head injuries,
facial
fractures and cuts around the eye, among other bodily injuries. Doctors in
Kottagudem were too afraid of the police to even look at him, and it was not
until
the following day, when he was given permission to go to Hyderabad, that he was
treated. Dr. Balagopal had, in January, conducted an APCLC investigation into
the
murder of 12 suspected members of the People's War Group and their driver. It
had
been alleged that local police were behind these murders, and it may well be
that the
February 4 assault was the police's retaliation for Dr. Balagopal's role in this
investigation.
   As you must be aware, members of the APCLC have been targets of police
brutality in recent years. On September 3,1985, Dr. A. Ramanadham was shot dead
by police led by Superintendent Arvinda Rao and Deputy Inspector General Janak
Raj, and on November 7,1986, Jara Laxma Reddy was killed by a police
subinspector.
No one was ever prosecuted for these two murders. Then, on December 7,1991,
Narwa Prabhakara Reddy, the APCLC convenor in Warangal, was shot dead by
unidentified gunmen--after he had received niimcroiis death threats from local
police in connection with his work with victims of police abuses.   In recent
months, many members of the APCLC have been recciving these threats. Each of
these people is in grave danger, and it is the responsibility of your government
to
see to it that their lives are protected--especially from the threats of your
police.
   I urge you to order an impartial judicial investigation into these inxdents
of
police brutality against citizens in general and human rights activists in
particular:
the beating up of Dr. Balagopal, the murders of siispected PWG members into
which
he was inquiring, and the murders of Dr. Ramanadhan, Jara Laxma Reddy and
Narwa Prabhakara Reddy. And following the investib^ati0n, I urge you to ensure
that justice is done--that the criminals among the police are properly
punished--for
only if this is done can we begin to see a reversal in tlie criminalization of
state
apparatus that is making our society so insecure.

                                       Sincerely,
#2............................................................................
To:
The Governor
Government of Gujarat
Gadhinagar, Gujarat

Respected Sir,

  We are outraged and grieved to hear of the assault by forest departmen
men on the Adivasis of Kosimda village, dist. Dangs, on November 20,1991
On this day, a forest department team drove into the village, and shot
Taraben Pawar, a 24 year old woman, to death. They then turned on her 67
year old mother-in-law and pounded her with a rifle butt and riddled her
nephew with bullets. After this, they went around the village firing
indiscriminately. The forest team's action was unprovoked; only after these
events did the villagers of Kosimda retaiiate in legitimate anger ad attck
the forest party and their property.
   That this is not the first assault on Adivasis by the forest department must
be known to you. We remind you that on October 10, several hundred forest
men destroyed the standing crop of tribal families in Barda village, andon
September 10 and October 3, two Adivasis were attacked ad robbed by forest
men in the area. In Kosimda, following the forest party's attack, policehave
kidnapped two villagers. These events indicate that the state's response to
the down-trodden Adivasis of Gujarat, who comprise more than 14% of the
population, is repression rather than aid in their struggle for survival.
   We urge you to respond to the firing of November 20 with a judicial
inquiry into the events surrounding the murder of Taraben Pawar and the
assault on others of her family. In the meantune, we ask that those injured
in the attack be paid compensation without delay. Finally, we urge yo   u
to work for the basic land rights of the Adivasis of the region, so that they
can
have official tille to the land they have cultivated for generations, wihout
harrassment from the forest department. Only in this way can Adivasis and
the government, the welfare of both of whom is tied up with the forests,
work in harmony towards the preservation of India's forests.


                                        Sincerely,