tagged w/ Chhattisgarh
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Circumstantial evidence is to corroborate the crime.
If the crime is not proved. the corroborative evidence is to be thrown out.That’s all.
Unwanted non sequitur observations may be quoted out of context in cases and the culprit,especially in a case like sedition, shall go scot free.
In a terrorist case, literature of fundamentalist/violent literature is used to prove sedition.
Now that can be quashed by quoting this observation.
True.possession of Gandhian literature does not make one a Gandhian,nor the absence of it makes a man violent.
Sometimes Their Lordships go overboard with clichés.
http://ramanan50.wordpress.com/2011/04/16/binayak-sen-bail-sc-observation-unfortunate/Circumstantial evidence is to corroborate the crime.
If the crime is not proved.... more
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Human rights group slams life sentence for Indian doctor
By Moni Basu, CNN
December 25, 2010 1:56 p.m. EST
Photo: Binayak Sen waves as he's taken to court in Raipur, India, in 2008.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
* Dr. Binayak Sen is accused of helping Maoist rebels in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh
* Sen, an award-winning public health specialist, denies the charges
* Amnesty International said the charges of sedition and conspiracy were politically motivated
(CNN) -- A life sentence handed down to a rural pediatrician in the world's largest democracy had human rights activists screaming a mockery of justice Saturday.
A court in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh found Dr. Binayak Sen and two others guilty of sedition and conspiracy Friday for helping India's Maoist Naxalite movement. They were sentenced to life in jail.
Amnesty International blasted the court's actions as a violation of international fair trial standards and said Binayak's sentence was likely to enflame tensions in an area already clouded by conflict.
Amnesty said the charges were politically motivated because Sen reported the unlawful killings of tribal people by police and a private militia believed to be sponsored by the government to fight Maoist rebels.
"Life in prison is an unusually harsh sentence for anyone, much less for an internationally recognized human rights defender who has never been charged with any act of violence," said Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International's Asia-Pacific director.
"State and federal authorities in India should immediately drop these politically motivated charges against Dr. Sen and release him."
Soli Sorabjee, a former attorney general of India, also criticized the Sen verdict on CNN's sister network, CNN-IBN.
"It is a shocking judgement," he said. "There has been a complete misinterpretation of what sedition means. At this rate no human rights activist will be safe in the country."
Binayak's lawyers intend to appeal the sentence and Sorabjee said they have a good chance at succeeding in a higher court.
Three decades ago, Sen and his wife, Ilina, went to live and work in Chhattisgarh, where he was considered a pioneer of public health in one of India's poorest areas.
He gained international recognition as a human rights defender and won several accolades including the Jonathan Mann Award for Global Health and Human Rights. Twenty-two Nobel laureates from around the world appealed for his release to the Indian authorities, including the prime minister and president.
Sen was detained in 2007 for colluding with Maoist rebels and has been behind bars since then.
He denies the charges and said he has never condoned the kind of violence perpetrated by the guerrillas, called Naxalites after Naxalbari, a village in neighboring West Bengal state where they originated in the late 1960s.
Since then, the Naxalites have been waging a violent campaign to secure better living and working conditions for the working class and poor tribal people.
Over the years, Naxal groups have targeted Indian security forces in several impoverished eastern Indian states that have become known as the "Red Corridor." The slow-churning war has killed about 2,000 people, including civilians.
In the past two days, four political activists were killed in West Bengal, said state police. Two were abducted and slain by suspected Naxals. Police arrested two rebels.
The Indian government outlawed the Naxals as terrorists and considers the movement the greatest internal security threat to the nation.
Sen was convicted of being a conduit between Naxals. The government said he had met Naxalite leader Narayan Sanyal in jail, CNN-IBN said.
Sanyal and Piyush Guha, a businessman from Kolkata, were also sentenced to life in prison.
Sen has acknowledged that the Naxals have voiced legitimate concerns of ordinary Indians but told told India's Tehelka magazine that they are an "invalid and unsustainable movement."
The magazine described Sen's case this way:
"The story of Binayak Sen is the story of the dangerously thin ice India's democratic rights skim on. The story of every dangerous schism in India today: State versus people. Urban versus rural. Unbridled development versus human need. Blind law versus natural justice.
"It is the story of an India unraveling at the seams," Tehelka said. "The story of unjust things that happen -- unreported -- to thousands of innocent people, the story of unjust things waiting to happen to you and me, if we ever step off the rails of shining India to investigate what's happening in the rest of the country. Most of all, it is the story of what can be done to ordinary individuals when the State dons the garb of being under siege."
Sen's wife said she was disappointed and saddened by Indian justice.
"I can say with certainty that the evidence does not warrant this verdict and this conviction," Ilina Sen told CNN-IBN.
"One of the charges against Dr. Sen is conspiracy but I believe that conspiracy was really to frame him," she said. "I am sure if this case goes to any court that looks into the law, looks into the evidence and looks into the legal position, I am sure that the conviction will not hold."
CNN's Harmeet Shah Singh contributed to this report.Human rights group slams life sentence for Indian doctor
By Moni Basu, CNN
December... more
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P Chidambaram seems to have repeated the same blunder that was committed by Rajiv Gandhi in trying to get V Prabhakaran shot dead at the behest of some foolish trigger-happy top Indian military brass. It’s true that the human rights activist Swami Agnivesh has put up a brave face by saying that the Azad’s death shall not be allowed to derail the peace process initiated by Swami Agnivesh in trying to bring a truce between the Indian Government and the CPI [Maoist]. But, the unpalatable truth is that the Congress/UPA has proved once again that the majority of the Indian politicians are really immature morons who cannot handle and resolve internal Indian political problems peacefully. Yes, the majority of the Indian politicians are excellently superb in taking care of their own personal interests even if these interests meant derailing the supreme Indian national interests.
The major chunk of the Indian politicians [whether those in ruling government or in opposition] wants the Indian democracy to function only for the exclusive benefit of the select political-bureaucratic-antisocial elements' network in India. Sushma Swaraj has called for Army action against the Maoists. But, she forgets that not long back there were posters/material in New Delhi that had suggested of Sushma’s links with Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar, the notorious Indian smuggler’s underworld.
The Congress/UPA had earlier used the shoulders of P Chidambaram to try to silence the voice of the civil society and human rights workers in India in terms of P Chidambaram having threatened to put all people [who expressed their candid and frank views on Maoist-Indian Government issue] by putting them into jails under various Indian laws. Well, if these Indian laws were to be applied sincerely, P Chidambaram himself would turn out to be the first person to be dubbed a goonda and put behind bars for having threatened, civil society, like a goon!
Also, the Congress/UPA shall have to put Digvijay Singh, the AICC general secretary, into jail for having challenged P Chidambaram on the vexing Naxal-Maoist issue. Then, the Congress/UPA shall have to put the management/correspondents of all the Indian newspapers like The Times Of India, etcetra for the later having published articles/views on this issue…P Chidambaram shall have to die and go to heaven if he [P Chidambaram] wished to bring back VP Singh, the former Indian Prime Minister to be put into the Indian Jail for VP Singh having commented some time before his death [comments were published in the Times Of India] during the meet at a slum that he [VP Singh] was so annoyed with the corruption in the system [Indian Government] that he [VP Singh] would pick up a gun and become a naxalite if he [VP Singh] were still young in age!
As regards the Maoist-Naxal issue in India, it’s a political problem and not a simple law and order issue. The Congress/UPA and opportunist opposition Indian political leaders have tried to wrongly project it as a law and order problem. The real problem is the majority of the Indian politicians themselves who seem to be considering their excellent political fortune as a divine right for ever to trample upon the rights of the ordinary citizenry/tribals. Why will your own citizen in general pick up a gun against you if you take care of your citizen’s genuine needs, desires and aspirations?
Well, this lesson seems to have been lost upon most of the Indian politicians. That’s why we see that the Indian nation-State has been at war against its own people since Indian independence in 1947. It’s true that most Indian politicians would love to see that you don’t see this true picture of the Indian polity.
The Indian government has waged wars and is still continuing wars against its own Indian people. Examples are numerous – Kashmir, Goa, Hyderabad, Nagaland, Mizoram, Assam, Punjab, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa. Although the Indian Government and state governments of Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal would like you to believe and even I myself would have liked to believe that Maoist issue were a law and order problem yet it were not so. The Factual reality is that it is an armed conflict in the aforesaid 5 states – irrespective of whether the majority of the Indian politicians would like to admit publically this factual reality or not. So, the United Nations Organization seems to have fully correctly designated the Indian government-Maoist conflict as the Armed Conflict and has wisely refused to accept it as a law and order problem.P Chidambaram seems to have repeated the same blunder that was committed by Rajiv... more
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The recent cold-blooded murder of AZAD and his colleague Hem Pandey, both belonging to CPI [MAOIST], in a blatantly cold-blooded fake encounter in Adilabad Forests bordering Andhra-Maharashtra by the Andhra Pradesh police, in all possibility under instructions from P Chidambaram, the home minister of India, has only confirmed further the deep suspicions raised earlier by Ms Mayawati, the UP CM, regarding the ruling Indian National Congress’ intentions about dealing with the Naxalites-Maoist issue in India.
As per the Maoist statement, “on June 1 [2010], the Andhra Pradesh Special Branch Police…arrested Com Azad, politburo member and spokesperson of CPI [Maoist] and Com Hem Pandey, a zonal committee level comrade, in Nagpur city around 11 am when they went to meet a comrade who was supposed to receive them from Dandakarnya zone. Azad reached Nagpur around 10 am on the fateful day along with Hem Pandey, after travelling a long distance…with specific information, the APSIB [Andhra Pradesh State Intelligence Bureau] abducted them, perhaps flew them in a helicopter, to Adilabad jungle near Maharashtra border and killed them.”
Going by the media reports in the mainstream Indian newspapers, it’s fully clear that the politburo member and spokesperson of the CPI [Maoist], Shri Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad was planning to discuss truce dates. A statement by the CPI [Maoist] said, “Azad was going to discuss with our comrades, concrete proposals of well-meaning people like Swami Agnivesh about particular dates for the mutual ceasefire.”
The statement added, “Will Chidambaram expect CPI (Maoist) to sit for talks with blood on his hands, of Com Azad and Com Hem Pandey?”
Does the Congress/UPA combine really wish for a truce with the Maoists-Naxals? The brazen unwanted killing of Azad, the key Truce-mediator, at the behest of the Centre seems unfortunately to indicate otherwise. It’s a time-honoured/pragmatic standard practice not to kill the DUUTA [MESSENGER] who generally acts as a go-between two warring parties. The DUUTA is often a soft target. In this case, Azad was treated probably to be a soft target by P Chidambaram who got him killed as a revenge for the heat unleashed by the Maoist attacks on the paramilitary forces like the CRPF in revenge for crimes perpetrated on the innocent tribals by the Indian security forces.
Well, P Chidambaram has foolishly lost an opportunity to deal peacefully with the Maoists by having Azad killed. It is something akin to the Maoist killing P Chidambaram to avenge the killing and torture of the tribals at the hands of the security forces in which case the Centre might refuse talks with the Maoists. OR IS IT THAT THE CONGRESS/UPA COMBINE DOESN’T WANT TO HAVE A NEGOTIATED PEACE SETTLEMENT WITH THE MAOISTS? The killing of Azad seems to suggest so.
It seems to be an old foolish-policy-blunder-mechanism that the Congress always has used.
Remember the recent TV interview in which one retired Indian army general had boasted as to how he had convinced Rajiv Gandhi, the then Indian PM, to get V Prabhakaran, the LTTE chief wiped out, a strategy based on which only, V Prabhakaran was shot at by the Indian snipers when V Prabhakaran had come to meet the Indian high commissioner to Sri Lanka prior to the outbreak of a full-fledged hostility between the LTTE and the IPKF?
Luckily for V Prabhakaran, the Indian snipers failed to kill him. But, this treacherous act by Indian politicians made V Prabhakaran a sworn enemy of Rajiv Gandhi that culminated in the revenge-death of Rajiv Gandhi by the LTTE operatives. Also, that very treacherous act deprived the suffering Lankan Tamils of any Indian help in terms of the Indian National Congress having harboured animosity towards V Prabhakaran after Rajiv Gandhi’s death. This chain of events probably made the ruling Congress-led UPA to give silent approval to Mahinda Rajpaksa, the Sri Lankan President who ruthlessly got his military then kill more than 20,000 innocent Lankan Tamils to overcome the resistance by the LTTE, a little prior to the 2009 Indian General elections.
Although, the Congress/UPA would not like to admit it yet the fact seems to be that the Congress/UPA feared that the NDA-led coalition might win 2009 elections and as such Congress/UPA would lose a golden chance to get V Prabhakaran wiped out, even if the wiping out of the later meant human rights violation for more than 20,000 innocent Lankan Tamils who were then going to be butchered by the Lankan military within a time of few weeks.The recent cold-blooded murder of AZAD and his colleague Hem Pandey, both belonging to... more
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