Post News Network
Bhubaneswar: Dongria Kondh tribes knocked the door of Orissa Human Rights Commission (OHRC) Monday seeking protection of their fundamental rights.
Alleging they are constantly under threat of police highhandedness, the tribals petitioned that the police treated them like Maoists and threatened to kill them.
The Kui-speaking tribals, led by their sarpanch Malati Kadaka, said the police harassed them because they were protesting Vedanta’s Bauxite mining project. “Heavy police deployment has been made in our forest after the Supreme Court banned mining in our village. The police quelled our protests against mining by framing us in charges of sedition,” Kadaka said.
The apex court in 2013 empowered Gram Sabhas under Forest Rights Act to decide whether to allow Vedanta to mine the hills. “None of us wants mining in our forest. But, police frequently arrested, tortured and branded us as Maoists,” Balachandra Sadangi, member of Niyamgiri Surkhya Samiti (NSS), an umbrella outfit against Vedanta project, said.
Subhash Kulesiki, a Plus III student belonging to Dhongria Kondh class, is the only man who completed his schooling in Niyamgiri hills. “Muniguda police arrested me twice and called me a Maoist. As I can read, write and speak Oriya, the police would say I’m not Dhongria but a Maoist,” Kulesiki said.
NSS president Haribandhu Kudrat was blind-folded and kidnapped by the police, Kadaka said. “He had spent four months in jail before being released on bail,” he added.
Sashi Kadarka (21), another victim of police atrocity, said his father Drik, a farmer, committed suicide November 28 after police threatened to arrest him as a ‘‘Maoist’’. “My father never took part in the protests. Police witch-hunt Dhongrias and frame them on fake charges,” Sashi said.
The collector and SP told him on the post-mortem day that if he tells anyone about his father’s suicide due to police threat, they would abduct five other innocent villagers, Sashi told Orissa POST.
Rayagada SP KS Subramani, however, denied the allegations as false as police do not harass villagers. Subramani feigned ignorance about Drik Kudaraka’s death.
The OHRC, meanwhile, has sought report from Chief Secretary, principal secretary to Home department and KBK administrator on the issue.
