Delhi University professor Nandini Sundar has said that the FIR registered against her on charges of murder by Chhattisgarh Police is part of a larger plot by the Raman Singh government to “eliminate all voices of dissent” from speaking up on “the reign of fake encounters and gang rapes in the state”.
“First they burnt our effigies, now a false FIR is being filed against us,” she told News18.
Earlier, Superintendent of Police Sukma district IK Elesela had said that an FIR had been filed against Sundar, Jawaharlal Nehru University professor Archana Prasad, Vineet Tiwari of Delhi’s Joshi Adhikar Sansthan and Sanjay Parate (Chhattisgarh CPIM state secretary) for the murder of a villager Shamnath Baghel on November 4.
According to police, armed Maoists had killed Baghel in his home in Nama village in Tongpal area of Chhattisgarh. The officer said that Baghel’s wife had deposed that he had got threats from Maoists after they complained against Sundar in May this year.
However, Sundar alleged that the FIR was a direct fallout of the CBI chargesheet on the involvement of ‘special police officers’-turned-constables in arson in Tadmetla in 2011, an operation which, she said, was directed by SRP Kalluri, the controversial Inspector General of Police in the Maoist-hit Bastar district.
Sundar had recently launched a book on the Maoist conflict in the region, The Burning Forest: India’s War in Bastar, which focused on the plight of villagers caught in the crossfire. She told News18 the book might have played a role in leading up to the latest FIR.
“The book may have something to do with it, but it’s more likely that Kalluri is worried about being implicated in the Tadmetla attacks,” Sundar said.
“This all cannot happen without directions from the highest level of the government, and the police are in tandem with the Raman Singh Government of Chhattisgarh. This is a larger game plan of the government of thwart any kind of dissent or stop human rights activists from exposing their atrocities,” said Sundar, who is currently in the US.
“The FIR is patently absurd. We condemn the killing of Shamnath Baghel and reiterate that it has nothing to do with us. This is clearly part of IG Kalluri's attempt to intimidate and harass journalists, lawyers, researchers, political leaders and human rights activists who have exposed the reign of fake encounters, gang rapes etc. that are going on in Bastar,” she said.
Sundar said the wife of the victim was being used by the police, “as is the practice of most of the cops in Chhattisgarh.”
“I am quite sure from the complaint that the police have written it for this poor wife. First she loses her husband, and then the police are using her as a pawn,” she said.
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