Singur Hr Violations Ff Report By Masum

MASUM’s Fact Finding Report dated 2.12.2006 Now, Singur, an obscure place in District: Hoogly, West Bengal hijacked the National limelight for the resistance shown by the agrarian populace of the place against forceful land gabbing of the State administration. The local people had been building up the resistance since long in the area where a TATA group decided to establish a motor vehicle factory in the acquired land in Singur. The local resisting force got some intellectuals and student activists by their side for this cause. They were camping in Beraberi, Ghaser Veri and nearby villages for resisting forcible acquiring of their own land, many areas of which are fertile and multi crop producing lands. The noted social activist, Ms. Medha Patkar was also present to show her solidarity with the movement and a public tribunal was organized few days back and she took active participation in it. The state government deployed a large number of police contingent and Rapid Action Force (RAF), near about 5000, over there, and is continuing the force deployment in the area. The government already promulgated the prohibitory order u/s 144 of Criminal Procedure Code (Cr.P.C.) in Singur. When the government officials started barbing the land on 2nd November 2006 at about 10 a. m., the local villagers tried to resist the attempt of the government by mobilizing the masses. In due course of time, violence broke out and police force and RAF resorted to widespread lathi-charge and firing tear-gas shells and rubber bullets. It has been reported that the police entered in to the adjoining villages and mercilessly beat and physically assaulted the villagers indiscriminately showing no respect to the women, old people and children. Number of people got severe injuries due to police brutality. The police entered in to the houses and ventured into the roof top and beat up unarmed peaceful people with batons causing bloodsheds. Singur is in highlight already due to “Leftist” government’s transition by calling multi-national TATA group for constructing their car factory over fertile land. The opposition political groups inside and outside the legislative house and several sociopolitical groups in street, had been protesting this action of the government of acquiring land from the peasants who were not at all willing to part with their land under any situation. The marginalized agrarian community largely with the protesting group, but the state government has decided to acquire the said land by any mean even by applying crude physical force and state violence and terror. In course of acquiring of land forcefully the police arrested nearly more than 60 people comprising women and even children on 2.12.2006. Among them, Jhuma Patra, daughter of Mr. Ashok Patra of village Ghaser Veri, Singur, 12 years old and a student of class V in Naraharipara Primary School and Soma Dhara daughter of Sanyasi Dhara of same village, a minor were also arrested. The fact finding team of

Masum visited the detainees at Chandannagar Police Station. Altogether 18 women were detained in Chandannagar Police Station by the police authority under two police cases being Singur Police Case nos 150 & 151 dated 2.12.2006. Both the cases the complainant was Officer-in-Charge of Singur Police Station, Mr. Priya Brata Baxi. In case no. 150, according to police version, 38 persons were arrested and among them 4 were admitted to government hospital. The police initiated the case under sections 147/148/149/186/188/447/332/333/353/325/307 of Indian Penal Code (IPC) & 9(b) (2) of Indian Explosive Act (I.E. Act) with 9 W.B.M.P.O. Act. In the Case No. 151, ten people were injured and one police personnel also received injury. This case was registered under sections 147/148/149/188/323/353/307 of IPC and 9(b) (2) of I.E. Act. The Fact Finding Team of Masum visited Chuchura Hospital, chuchura Police Station and Chandannagar police station. During the visit, the team met arrested persons and the injured persons in police custody for getting the truth. According to the arrestees, they were unarmed and peaceful during the arrests. At the time of arrest no memo of arrest or inspection memo to the injured was ever prepared by the arresting police in compliance of the mandatory directions of Supreme Court in D.K. Basu judgment reported in AIR 1999 SC 610. The police personnel were fully armed and during the arrest and had severely manhandled and brutally beaten the protestors. The Fact Finding team also visited Chinsura General Hospital, where four of them were detained with severe injuries. One of them was Dilip Das who bled profusely for hours without any medical assistance and got eight stitches in his scalp after many hours of his arrest. In the meantime, Ms. Medha Patkar was arrested with seven other companions and she was manhandled during her arrest and verbal abuse was made by the police personnel, there were no arrangement of adequate police forces to effect the arrest. Later her companions, Mr. Dipankar Chakraborty, Mr. Sumit Chowdhury and others were released on furnishing personal release bonds (PR Bond) at Chinsura Police Station. But Ms. Medha was whisked away in a police car and the car was moved towards Kolkata, where she was in the car whole night. The police announced that she was not arrested. Restricting the movement of a free citizen is an arrest and the police of Singur P.S informed her that she was arrested. Her detention and restricting her free movement was out and out illegal act of the police who got enough patronization from the administration and government to defeat the rule of law in order to achieve the narrow end of the administration and virtually putting the entire democratic system into a ludicrous and farcical one. It was utter violation spirit of Indian Constitution particularly Art 19 and 21.

At Chandannagar Police Station at 10 pm, the fact finding team found 18 women lying in the front office. Names of the arrestees were:-1. Rangta Munshi 2. Gargi Sengupta 3. Swapna Banerjee 4. Chaitali Bhattacharjee 5. Dipali Moitra 6. Sankari Koley 7. Champa Poila 8. Padma Dey 9. Tapasi Das 10.Sakuntala Das 11.Shyamali Das 12.Sabitri Patra 13.Sabitri Das 14.Soma Dhara 15.Lakshmi patra 16.Jhuma Patra 17.Sandhya Patra 18.Pratima Dey Sl. No. 14 Soma Dhara daughter of Sanyasi Dhara of Singur aged about 14 years and Sl. No. 16 Jhuma daughter of Alok Patra, a student of class five of Narasinghapur School were amongst the arrestees lying in the floor of office of Chandannagar PS. When asked, the duty police officer and Officer-in-Charge of said Chandannagar PS said that under the order of senior officers, all these persons were kept in detention at this PS though all the arrested people are not connected with any offence of Chandannagar area. Though in Chinsura, the District Head Quarter, there was a women cell of police, but they did not put the female prisoners there. While talking with the female prisoners, they jointly told the Fact Finding team, that they were mercilessly beaten by the police and police used with abusive language. They leveled serious allegations that many of the female arrestees were manhandled molested and sexually abused by the male men in uniform of police. The women prisoners asked the team to supply one bottle of drinking water as they could not drink the water supplied by police because the bottle was so dirty that it was unfit for human consumption. Not a single Memo of arrest was prepared against them. Later, on 3/12/2006 in the morning hours, the police could secure the release of two minor girls, namely Miss Soma & Miss Jhuma under their set up legal practioners on PR Bond (Personal Release Bond) in a case under section 151 of Cr.P.C. The rest of the female arrestees were produced before the court of Additional Chief Judicial

Magistrate of Chandannagar and they were given into judicial remand till 8th December 2006. Our Fact Finding team also visited District Hospital at Chinsura. The team met 1. Mr. Dilip Das -44 years 2. Mr. Mrityunjoy Patra- 52 years 3. Mr. Tapan Batabyal -53 years 4. Mr. Bilas Sarkar – 26 years All were kept in prison ward with armed police guard in the hospital. The team managed to talk with the under trial prisoners there. The team found Mr Dilip Das with bandage over his head and the injury with 8 stitches; he was lying in the bed in critical condition. He informed us that the police inflicted injury on his head and even after receiving serious bleeding injury over his head at about 11am, police did not take him to any doctor for treatment. Putting him in a police car he was brought at Chinsura Hospital at about 1.30 pm alongwith other co-injured arrested persons. Only after about two and half hours in police custody he got first aid. Profuse bleeding from his injured head took place by this time, as stated other inmates of that ward. One police officer came to this prison ward and threatened all these four people to sign in the respective Memo of Arrest, but they refused because some paragraphs were kept blank in the memo, mainly the time of arrest. When the team talked with Mr. Mrityunjoy Patra, he showed his injured right leg and his back. Mr Tapan Batabyal lying in a bed with big haematoma both right and left legs. Mr. Bilas Sarkar, one energetic youth with long hare showed his injured left shoulder, lacerated injuries and swelling over on his different parts of the body. Our Fact Finding team then rushed to Chinsura police station where we found all total 10 people, all are the villagers of Beraberi, PS – Singur, were kept in the lock-up. Their names were – 1. Mr. Shyamal Ghosh s/o Sibram Ghosh 2. Mr. Uday Ghosh s/o Madan Mohan Ghosh 3. Mr. Birat Mlik s/o Late Gokul Malik 4. Mr. Tushar Kanti Karmakar s/o Late Jugal Kishore Karmakar 5. Mr. Prabir Ghosh s/o Manik Ch Ghosh 6. Mr. Swapan Santra s/o Balai Chandra Santra 7. Mr. Amal Das s/o Narendra Nath Das 8. Mr. Sanat Sheet s/o Bhadreswar Sheet 9. Mr. Swarup Patra s/o Baidyanath Patra 10.Naba Kumar Bag s/o Gokul Chandra Bag

All those Under Trial Prisoners showed injury marks over their body caused by lathi (baton) charge. They were arrested at about 4pm at Singur and put in Chuchura lockup after 8 pm. About four hours they were forced to sit in a prison van. Scanning the entire incident at Singur on 2.12.2006 that shook and shocked the conscience of the democratic people, it can be safely said that the human rights of the people were grossly violated. The police administration swung into barbaric violent actions ignoring and blatantly violating legal procedures and constitutional rights of the people with direct encouragement and support from the highest administration. The police have set the democratic system into an arrogant desire of the tyranny. By this process, all legal procedures and rule of law were put into the state of mockery. The date and time of arrest was not shown correctly to avoid of recording illegal detention. We can not say that it is the plan / fault of Singur police officials only, because district and state level high police officials are in close touch with the every tit-bits of police action. The police had shown no respect to the life and property of the people of the country. The entire picture demonstrated as if the police had been fighting in a foreign land against the enemy. It is the scheme of the police regulation that the police must behave with the people with humane face. Rudeness, harshness and brutality are forbidden under regulation no. 33 of Police Regulations of Bengal 1943. The mandatory directions of the Supreme Court in D.K. Basu judgment (AIR 1997 SC 610) have been shown scant respect by the state police force. All the arrestees were produced before ACJM court at Chandannagar on 3.12.2006. We are sorry to observe that while dealing with Singur episode, the criminal justice administration showed partisan stand to save the violators in uniform. The children were arrested and kept in police lock up with other inmates and they were released on the next day on furnishing personal bond under total violations of the procedure of Juvenile Justice Act. The police exerted excessive brutal force in a revengeful manner on the peasants and villagers, action of which is the wildest nightmare in any civilised society. From the behaviour of the police and the government aftermath, it is not at all evident that a democratically elected system is on the run; instead it looks like a regime run by a tyrannic monarchy. Police, civil administration act like henchmen of Tata group. Even in conducting arrest the police have not followed the provisions enumerated under sections 46(2) / 130(3) of Cr.P.C.

The citizens of a free country like India have constitutional right to assemble peacefully and express their views and opinions on any subject and right to agitate peacefully. By this process, the judiciary dealing with the police cases arising out of Singur incident has been threatening to become a mere executive state agency forgetting its pivotal role at the time of crisis, to be unbiased, neutral and justice oriented; the attending Judicial Magistrate toed the line of the police and without applying judicial mind ordered the custody of all arrested persons including the innocent women only considering the nomenclature of the penal code on the face of the complaint. The judiciary has failed to live up when it was the most urgent demand of the situation and turned its head away when the law of the land was flouted and abused nakedly by the state administration and the police. Several International Covenants and International Laws have been shown scant regard by the Left ruled State administration and the police. To be specific, we can draw United Nations Declaration on the Right to Development (1986) where it has been unambiguously narrated the definition of Development in Article 1(2) of the declaration implies: The human right to development also implies the full realisation of the right of peoples to self-determination, which includes, subject to the relevant provisions of both International Covenants on human rights, the exercise of their inalienable right to full sovereignty over all their natural wealth and resources and the UN Declaration on the Right to Development (1986) -- Article 2 (1) -- The human person is the central subject of development and should be the active participant and beneficiary of the right to development. Never it ever looked the government for a bit of moment paused and considered the human person has any value in its agenda. Gun tottering, lathi wielding 6000 strong armed forces have made Singur a battle field where a villager has no value. Regardless of what happened at Singur on 2.12.2006, it is not clear actually what the government is really going to do. There is no transparency in taking the land by the government, at what price the government is giving land to the Industrialists, what should be the actual valuation of the so called acquired land, what will be fate of the peasants who are solely dependant of the agricultural activity, how the unwilling peasants to give up land will be dealt with, nothing is clear. If anything is done, it has to be done peacefully and with transparency keeping the rights and the interest of the peasants intact. Pictures are attached in separate folder