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

A woman from Nendra said she saw the police take away her sister in 2006. As of
December 2007 there was no news of her whereabouts. The guidelines issued by the
Supreme Court of India in D.K. Basu’s case state that the relatives or friends of a
detainee have the right to know the location where a detainee is being held. Since
the police did not disclose any information about the fate of the detainee or the
location, the detention is considered an enforced disappearance under international
law. 138 Describing how her sister was taken away, the eyewitness said,
When they [police] came the second time, my sister and I were picking
[vegetables] in the fields. Police came and I just managed to run away.
When I turned around and saw, they had caught my younger sister and
she was being taken away. She was about 16 or 17 years old then. I did
not wait to see anything else because I was scared and I kept running.
She did not come back at all…. We have no news of her until today. On
the same day they took 10 people from old Nendra. I knew one of
them—Veko Dhula, about 50 years old. I do not know the others
personally. We heard that they were taken to the Errabore police
station but after that we do not know what happened to them. We
have had no news of these 10 people. 139
C. Failure of the government to investigate abuses
Even though Chhattisgarh state government officials maintain that they “are
committed to the Rule of Law” and “[t]here is no failure on the part of State of
Chhattisgarh [to investigate] and therefore independent investigation is uncalled for
and unwarranted,” 140 police and other state government officials were unable to
provide Human Rights Watch with any information regarding the investigation or
prosecution of members of government security forces or Salwa Judum for human
rights abuses and crimes. Several NGO fact-finding teams have exposed these
138 See International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, adopted September 23, 2005,
E/CN.4/2005/WG.22/WP.1/Rev.4 (2005). India signed but has yet to ratify the convention.
139 Human Rights Watch interview with Modiyam Geeta (pseudonym), IDP from Nendra, village K10, Khammam district,
December 7, 2007.
140 Nandini Sundar and others v. State of Chhattisgarh, Sur-Rejoinder on Behalf of Respondent State of Chhattisgarh, April 10,
2008, p. 519, para. 15.
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