WSS

A letter was sent to the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Shri Shivraj Singh Chauhan demanding the release of Madhuri from JADS and a withdrawal of all charges being pressed by Health department staff against her and others from JADS. This arrest has been carried out in context of an earlier protest by JADS, carried due to the inhuman conditions in which an adivasi woman, Baniya Bai was forced to deliver at the roadside in public, since delivery care had been denied to her by the nearby Menimata PHC in Barwani district in November 2008. An independent enquiry into the entire incident related to Baniya Bai at Menimata PHC was also demanded along with prompt and effective action to improve maternal health services in Barwani district and other districts of Madhya Pradesh, to ensure that such denial of basic health rights and human rights is not repeated in future

We are shocked and distressed to know that Ms. Madhuri, a leading organiser of Jagrit Adivasi Dalit Sangathan (JADS) has been arrested in Barwani on 16th May 2013. This arrest has been carried out in context of an earlier protest by JADS, carried due to the inhuman conditions in which an adivasi woman, Baniya Bai was forced to deliver at the roadside in public, since delivery care had been denied to her by the nearby Menimata PHC in Barwani district in November 2008. Some of us have met Baniya Bai and her family, and have documented from them directly the details of the event and the denial.
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This report presents the terror faced by the people living in village Chaukhand, which is a village on the dam site of the Kharak dam proposed to be built on Kharak river in District Khargone, Madhya Pradesh. The incident occurred on 26th May 2013

TERROR IN THE VILLAGE:
At around 10.30 in the morning of the 26th of May 2013, a cavalcade of four large police vans filled with around 150 male and female police personnel, and several cars and jeeps and a large machine for work on the dam-site headed by Shri Jitendra Singh, SDM, Bhagwanpura arrived at Village Choukhand, which is a village on the dam site of the Kharak dam proposed to be built on Kharak river in District Khargone, Madhya Pradesh. These villagers, all adivasis, Bhils and Bhilalas, as well as those of the accompanying villages had been resisting the construction of the Kharak dam, until they are rehabilitated and resettled, and their claims are justly settled. On that morning, as the cavalcade stopped at the village, many adivasi villagers went up to the administration to talk to them about the dam, and find out the reason for the police presence. The SDM was the first to emerge from his car, however he did not talk to the people or respond to their queries in any manner. The police force got down thereafter and grouped themselves in a single file. The SDM then ordered that the villagers should be arrested and put into the vans. At this, the police brutally lathi-charged the villagers. The villagers were chased all through the village. Those in their houses were not spared as the police personnel and the SDM himself went from house to house, dragging out people. Even the small children and any others who pleaded with the administration to talk to them were not spared.
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