People's Democracy

MADHYA PRADESH

CPI(M) Team Exposes Reality of Dindauri Firing

ON the very next morning after the police firing in Dindauri, in the Umariya district of Madhya Pradesh, on September 15, a CPI(M) probe team visited the village as well as Karanjia and Parsel, talked to a large number of the village dwellers including the eye witnesses, and came to the conclusion that the firing was an act of revenge perpetrated by the police. The CPI(M) has demanded the prosecution of the guilty officials. 

The CPI(M) team comprised its Umaria district secretary Ashok Patel and district committee member Raviraj Chauhan.

The team has reached the following conclusions.

1) The district collector and the superintendent of police well knew about the demonstration in advance. They are also responsible for the callous attitude of the administration, which led the village people to demonstrate. The local police had been constantly refusing to lodge an FIR about the disappearance of Advocate Narayan Padwar on July 10. Moreover, they did nothing to trace the whereabouts of the advocate even after they lodged an FIR on August 11, full one month after the event and that too after the DIG�s intervention. 

2) On September 4, the SP, SDM and SDOP reached Parsel, the missing advocate�s village. But, instead of consoling the family members and assuring them of positive action, they began to talk to his wife and sister in an uncivilised and abusive language. They also made unbecoming comments, insinuating that the missing advocate was having fun with girls somewhere. This enraged the village dwellers, particularly women, who demonstrated against the administration then and there, throwing bangles upon the visiting officers. It was then that the officers decided to teach the village people a lesson and avenged their insult through the September 15 firing.

3) On September 15, the demonstrating people were wholly peaceful. They began to raise angry slogans only after the policemen, at the instance of their officers, began to round up women in an uncivilised manner. The arrested women included Santoshi and Mamata, respectively the wife and sister of the missing advocate. 

4) On the order of their officers, the policemen began the firing while targeting the faces and chests of the demonstrators. The officers later said three persons had died, but the CPI(M) team found out that the dead persons in fact numbered five. The reason is that two of the injured --- Ashok, 35, of village Parsel and Dinesh, 25, of village Barbaspur --- breathed their last after they were taken to Jabalpur. More than one bullet was found in the chest and stomach of every deceased. In case of 11 among the other injured persons too, bullets had hit the upper parts of their bodies.

5) The SDM and the SDOP had reached the spot at 10 a m on the day, and had soon begun to use a mike to issue the warnings of a firing. No attempt whatsoever to negotiate with the demonstrators or their representatives was made, before they ordered a firing at 10.30.   

6) The village people categorically said that the policemen themselves had torched the SDM�s vehicle in an attempt to cook up a justification of the firing. This they did after the firing had made the demonstrators run away.

7) About 60 persons, including women, were still suffering from their injuries but the administration had made no arrangement for their treatment. Nor were the policemen prepared to have their FIRs lodged. Also, the bodies of the wife and the sister of the missing advocate, Narayan Padwar, bore several marks of the police beating. But they too were not treated.

8) The firing had terrorised the village people in a radius of about 20 km, and they were not able to lead a normal life.  

The CPI(M) team found that this desire of revenge had made the SP sit in Bhopal on the day instead of remaining present in his district. This he did despite having the prior information about a big demonstration.

On the basis of the CPI(M) team�s probe report, the party�s state committee demanded the following:    

1) removal of the SP and collector from their posts;

2) institution of a criminal case of murder against the guilty officials;

3) a judicial probe into the incident;

4) compensation of Rs five lakh for the family of each of the five deceased and of Rs one lakh for each of the injured;

5) despatch of a Red Cross team to the village for the treatment of the injured persons at home; and

6) a thorough search for the missing advocate.

The CPI(M) state committee has also demanded that the police and administration must forthwith stop their nefarious attempts to spread terror among the villagers, and take steps for the restoration of normal life in Parsel and the surrounding villages.

The CPI(M) has also requested the National Human Rights Commission to send a team to the area and keep constant watch on the situation there.