*COMMITTEE FOR THE RELEASE OF POLITICAL PRISONERS*

185/3, FOURTH FLOOR, ZAKIR NAGAR, NEW DELHI

*CONDEMN THE ARREST OF Medha Patkar, Gopal Menon, Sujato Bhadra *

*and others on their way to Lalgarh! *

*Punish the police men who brutally assaulted filmmaker Gopal Menon!*

*RELEASE THEM UNCONDITIONALLY!*

The Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners (CRPP) strongly condemn
the arrest of Medha Patkar, Sujato Bhadra, Gopal Menon and Anuradha Talwar
at Bombay road on their way to Lalgarh by the West Bengal Police. They were
arrested and booked under Cr PC 151 & 188.

Gopal Menon the filmmaker was specifically targeted by the vindictive police
of West Bengal who brutally assaulted him with rifle butts and batons. He
was beaten under the specific instructions of the Additional SP of police
Pranab Kumar as per the information from several civil rights groups. After
being beaten on the chest and other parts of the body he had to be admitted
to the Debra Hospital near by as he started profusely vomiting. Gopal Menon
had also tried to accompany another fact finding team a few days before
comprising of senior trade union activists, women’s activists, lawyers and
other social activists. This team also was arrested at Midnapore. May be the
crime of Gopal Menon was his assertion to his right to know and document the
activities of the state in supposedly bringing back ‘normalcy’ in Lalgarh
and Jangal Mahal.

If this is what a documentary filmmaker has to face before the lawless
police and paramilitary of the CPM-led government in West Bengal then one
can imagine the state of affairs of the faceless Adivasi people of Lalgarh
and Jangal Mahal. No wonder why the police and the paramilitary are not
allowing anyone with an independent mind to visit the area under occupation
by the forces. This also brings to the fore the fear of several civil rights
bodies and other independent observers that the police and paramilitary can
resort to any level of barbarism in order to ‘sanitise’ the area. And this
also makes it clear why the central home minister P. Chidambaram does not
want any civil society group or human rights bodies to visit the area!

The only way that this government can deal with the issues of life and death
for the toiling masses, pertaining to the four dreaded Ds—Displacement,
Destruction, Destitution and Death—are only through the baton and barrels of
the police and paramilitary. Otherwise any people oriented government would
have first listened to the just demands of the Adivasis of Lalgarh. The
latest reports coming from independent sources also say that the
paramilitary has started burning the huts and destroying the poultry of the
people in Lalgarh. Their wells are being poisoned and excreta being thrown
into the water bodies that are normally used for drinking purposes. All
these exercise of brutality point to Salwa Judum kind of campaign being
undertaken against the defiant masses of Lalgarh. Already there are reports
of harassment of children, women and the old.

The Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners (CRPP) demand the
immediate and unconditional release of these prominent social and civil
rights activists. We demand that the Additional SP Pranab Kumar who had
specifically instructed his police men to brutalise the filmmaker Gopal
Menon should be booked under the law of the land for abuse of his power.
Such high handed and authoritarian behaviour of senior police officers
should be curbed firmly. Such police officers can only be a bane ot the
society.

03.07.09

Gurcharan Singh Amit Bhattacharyya
SAR Geelani

President Secretary General
Vice President

Rona Wilson

Secretary, Public Relations

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