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One villager from Pidmel claimed that one of the participants was arrested: “Recently,
people from our village were going to Jagdalpur to attend the meeting organized by
Manish Kunjam. On the way to Sukma, SPOs abducted Musaki Unga (about age 25)
and took him to Dornapal police station and did not release him.” 173
Shubhranshu Choudhary, one of the moderators of Chhattisgarh Net or CGNet
(www.cgnet.in), an online citizen journalism initiative, reported to Human Rights
Watch other cases of harassment by police. CGNet organizes an annual meeting
called the Dream Chhattisgarh Meet. 174 According to Choudhary, Chhattisgarh police
harassed many participants at the third annual meeting that was held from
December 28 to December 30, 2007, in Raipur. Some displaced persons who fled
from Chhattisgarh and settled in Andhra Pradesh had also joined the gathering.
SPOs threatened these displaced persons and prevented them from addressing the
gathering. 175
Choudhary also said that in three or four cases, Chhattisgarh police visited
participants’ homes in various parts of Chhattisgarh while they were at the meeting.
In the case of Tulsiram Yadav, police waited at his house and arrested him as soon
as he returned home after the meeting. According to Choudhary, some participants
were so intimidated that they were reluctant to tell their stories to the press and
lawyers at the meeting. Instead, they returned home immediately, changing routes
and cars numerous times to avoid the police. 176
The Chhattisgarh police also reopened a long-dormant case against a brother of a
journalist who was attending this meeting. They arrested him on charges of being a
Naxalite after his brother wrote articles about the atrocities of Salwa Judum and
SPOs. Several journalists who had intended to describe their own experiences of
173 Human Rights Watch interview with Tati Dhiren (pseudonym), IDP from Pidmel, village K8, Khammam district, December 6,
2007.
174 Email communication from Shubhranshu Choudhary to Human Rights Watch, January 8, 2008.
175 Ibid.
176 Ibid.
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Human Rights Watch July 2008