Centre moves SC seeking perjury charges against petitioner who accused security forces of extra-judicial killings during anti-Naxal operations

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The PIL filed by Kumar was based on testimonies recorded by him in 2009 into deaths of 17 villagers in three different incidents. While these testimonies blamed security forces for the deaths, the government’s claim is that they were killed by Naxals. Kumar, who ran the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram in Dantewada, claims to have been forced out of the Naxal-dominated area after his petition, and has said he is being targeted for speaking up for poor tribals.

Individuals and organisations are “conspiring, abetting and facilitating filing of petitions premised on false and fabricated evidence… with a motive to either deter the security agencies to act against the Left Wing (Naxal) militia by imputing false charges on them or to screen off the Left Wing (Naxal) militia from being brought to justice by creating a false narrative of victimization before the Hon’ble Courts”, the Centre said in its petition to the apex court.

Kumar claimed to have recorded testimonies on October 11, 2009, in three villages then in Dantewada and now in Sukma districts. These accused security forces of killing two villagers in the neighbouring villages of Velpocha and Nalkathong, and nine in Gompad, on October 1, 2009, and killing six others in Gachanpalli on September 17 that year.

Kumar said family members of the deceased and other eyewitnesses had seen the security forces attack the tribals with bayonets, shoot them at close range, and mutilate the bodies. One of the petitioners, Sambho Sodi, said she was shot in the leg by the forces, while the petition also alleged that a minor boy’s hand was chopped off.

The Centre argued that Maoists were behind the deaths and that the petition was a fraudulent document.

In its petition, the Centre also said that the statements taken by G P Mitttal, the district judge of Tis Hazari Court, Delhi, in 2010 of the tribal petitioners were made available to it only on March 25, 2022. “Though, in the year 2010, it is possible that the said report may have been received by the counsel for the applicant… surprisingly the said report was nowhere found in the official records of the applicant,” the Centre said, adding that it got the report after several attempts.

The Centre said that in the statements, the villagers, who are illiterate, had either said that they had run off into the jungles at the sound of firing, or that they had seen attackers come from the jungle. “None of the petitioners have even remotely made any accusation against police or other security personnel.”

The “possibility of compelling such complainants to falsely depose before this Hon’ble Court under coercion or threat or under financial enticement can also not be ruled out”, the government said, adding that the “victims of abuse and atrocities inflicted by unscrupulous Left Wing Extremists” are thus being “misguided” by individuals to protect them.

It said that besides being a “threat to national security”, such petitions “lower the morale of security forces”. “… rarely does any individual security personnel comes forward to contest such allegations, since their service protocol deters them from doing so. Unwittingly and unfairly, they become easy targets of such accusations”.

Kumar said it was not the first time the government had tried to paint him as a Maoist supporter. “Thrice now the state and central BJP governments have brought it up, and twice the court has shut them down. It is interesting that all their accusations of me aiding and abetting Maoists are coming now. While I was in the state, I was a member of the legal aid society and heading the consumer forum… Why was a case never registered against me then?”

He also said that police had kidnapped his fellow petitioners and forbidden him from meeting them, until he brought this to the court’s notice. He questioned the Centre referring to the submission of statements by the tribals as a report. “The Supreme Court had asked the then district judge to record statements of the eyewitnesses. He was never asked to file any report,” he said.

Kumar said the sudden hardening of the government stand was to save the officers behind the killings. “Both the officers implicated in the case are now working with the NIA. So they are trying to get the NIA to investigate the case.”