Women Against Sexual Violence and State Repression
28 December 2016
Bastar police continue their vendetta against women human rights defenders. SP Bastar threatens Adv Shalini Gera, JagLAG lawyers with false cases
Clearly rattled by the mounting body of evidence of blatant violations of the rule of law and Constitutional rights under the cover of anti-Maoist operations, the Bastar police has launched a no-holds-barred attempt to silence all those who are calling them to account.
Advocate Shalini Gera and her colleagues of JagLAG who were in Jagdalpur in connection with a case of false encounter of a young Adivasi boy [1], were confronted on the night of 26 December by a police team which entered the dharamshala where they were staying and accused them of being there in an “unauthorised” manner. Despite the fact that they were following up on an order by the Chhattisgarh HC for exhumation and a second postmortem in the case and their accommodation had been arranged by the office of the Divisional Commissioner, Adv Shalini and her colleagues were ordered to come to the police station for interrogation. Attempts were also made to forcibly search their rooms and belongings. When asked to produce a warrant, the SI in charge of the team became even more aggressive and abusive. It took a personal call from the Divisional Commissioner to the SI to force the police to back off.
WSS 