“Being Neutral is Our Biggest Crime” - Global Coalition to Protect ...

there [pointing to a location about 100 yards away]. He walked into the
village with a bag and asked for Madan, and met him. Then he asked
to go to the toilet and when he went out he came back with Salwa
Judum people. They surrounded Madan and took him. Then they did
the same to his brother. All the villagers were alerted only as Madan’s
wife started screaming. They left their wives and children behind and
only dragged away the men … The brothers fell at the feet of Salwa
Judum people and begged not to be taken but they were beaten and
dragged. We couldn’t go to their rescue because there were so many of
them and we were so few of us. We were also very scared—Salwa
Judum was armed with machetes and knives, and the police had big
guns…. We still don’t know what happened to them. 97
The fear of reprisals is so high that people who have settled on the Andhra Pradesh
side said that they hide and run when they see Salwa Judum members. A member of
a group of displaced persons said,
We have seen Judum and can even identify some of them because
they are from neighboring villages from Chhattisgarh. These people
usually come on motorcycles or in autos [rickshaws] and cover their
faces with towels—so we cannot tell whether they are SPOs or Salwa
Judum because sometimes SPOs also wear clothes like ours. 98
One of the displaced persons continued,
Judum members identified me and asked me where I live. I told them
that I do not live here and I come here for agricultural labor and go
back. I did not want to tell them where I lived because I was scared
97 Human Rights Watch group interview with numerous displaced persons from different villages in Dantewada and Bijapur
districts who witnessed the abduction, village W7, Warangal district, December 1, 2007.
98 Human Rights Watch group interview GR4 with IDPs from Tolnai (who chose to remain anonymous), village K9, Khammam
district, December 7, 2007.
“Being Neutral is Our Biggest Crime” 44