Statements
against the arrest and frame-up of Rajkishore Singh : RDF, CRPP
Statement from Revolutionary Democratic Front (RDF)
On the 1st of November at 8 pm, RDF’s General Secretary,
Rajkishore, was arrested by the Bihar State police at his home in the
village of Bakhari in East Champaran now called Motihari District,
forced to sign on blank papers, and whisked away to the Madhuban
Bazaar Police Station in Motihari town. Around 150 to 200 armed
police personnel surrounded the village of Bakhari, barged into
Rajkishore’s house and interrogated him and his family. Rajkishore
is seventy one years of age and is ailing from serious medical
problems. He suffered a recent injury to his ears and fracture in
both sides of his lower jaw when turned unconscious and fell on the
flower. He has been undergoing treatment at the AIIMS in Delhi, is
taking heavy medication and is on a liquid diet, and had been advised
by his doctors to remain at home for the remainder of his recovery.
Two days after reaching home he was picked up by the state police
forces and charged in a case numbered 88 dated to 2005 that concerned
an incident in Madhuban Bazaar allegedly involving the CPI (Maoist).
The charge includes Indian Penal Code (IPC) 396 ‘dacoity with
murder’ and Criminal Law (Amendment) Act Section 17. He has been
remanded to judicial custody on case number 88/2005 based on a
‘confessional’ statement made in 2006 by one of those arrested in
the Madhuban case. The arrest warrant on Rajkishore has been pending
since 2006. He had visited his village a number of times in all these
years but the arrest warrant was never invoked in the past.
When he was produced before the magistrate, the state police
officials claimed that he will be remanded in 13 more cases out of
which 6 cases have been filed in the Madhuban Bazaar incidents in
2005. He was first interrogated at home and forced to sign on blank
papers. Then he was taken to the Madhuban Bazaar Police Station where
he was interrogated the whole night and the next day. He was then
sent to judicial custody. When the police arrested him, they even
took his diary and two books from his house which they subsequently
returned. His family was not informed of where he was being taken and
on what charges he has been arrested. The police forces, which came
in such large numbers, did not bring an arrest warrant with them. The
police have not revealed all the charges against him and have also
not announced his arrest for three days. His lawyers in Motihari are
currently attempting to find out the nature of the charges.
It is clear this arrest is a premeditated act by the Nitish Kumar
state government in Bihar along with the National Investigative
Agency (NIA) at the centre. In light of the changing political
situation in the country, the Nitish Kumar state government is being
blamed by the Congress and the BJP for not implementing the state led
war on people codenamed Operation Green Hunt. In this context,
competing with Congress and BJP led state governments, Nitish Kumar
government has stepped it brutal attacks on the people and
organizations. The paramilitary crackdown in the state of Bihar on
people’s struggles and on activists participating in them has
escalated over the last few years.
Recently, the Nitish Kumar government has aggressively undertaken
a policy to arrest mass activists and leaders, seize their property
and the bank accounts of these activists as well as their family
members. The state government is attempting to silence any and all
voices that have spoken against Operation Green Hunt by framing them
in cases linked with the CPI (Maoist). Old and new cases have been
framed and additional charges are being leveled against activists in
keeping with the increasingly reactionary laws framed by the central
and state governments branding people’s leaders as anti-national or
terrorists. 200 such families have been harassed and their bank
accounts seized over the last few months. It is then alleged that
these families have members who went underground as part of the
movement led by CPI (Maoist). Among them, the families of mass
activists have also been targeted. Nitish Kumar asked the Centre to
follow and implement the model of arresting and seizing the
properties of those families believed to have links with Maoists. In
addition to this, the NIA is working closely with the Bihar state
government and state police force and particularly in this case of
Rajkishore’s arrest their involvement is clear.
Rajkishore has been vocal against the Operation Green Hunt led by
the central government and being implemented by the state governments
of Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Maharashtra, and Andhra
Pradesh. He has been an active part of people’s movements all over
the country for the last forty years. He was the founder President of
the Krantikari Buddhijeevi Sangh in Bihar. He was in the All India
Executive of the All India League for Revolutionary Culture (AILRC)
and later became its all India General Secretary. In 1992, he was one
of the founder members of the All India People’s Resistance Forum
(AIPRF). In 2005, when a number of progressive and democratic
organizations merged to become RDF, he became its all India General
Secretary. In 2012, in the all India conference of RDF held in
Hyderabad, he was once again elected as the General Secretary. Over
the years he traveled widely across the country and led numerous
fact-finding teams and coordinated between people’s struggles
across states.
In the recent months as his health deteriorated Rajkishore
suffered two blackouts. The second blackout resulted in a fall
fracturing both sides of his jaw severely damaging his ears making
him bleed profusely for seven days. For this severe injury he had
been undergoing treatment in AIIMS for the last month. It is in this
condition the Bihar state police have arrested a well known and
outspoken activist and leader of people’s struggles who stood up
against the state sponsored war on people called Operation Green
Hunt. The arrest of Rajkishore is not isolated as various activists
of the RDF have been targeted by the central and state governments.
The recent killing of the Vice President Ganti Prasadam and then the
raid and harassment of the Joint Secretary GN Saibaba, the arrest and
incarceration of the Executive Members Dandapani Mohanty in Orissa,
Raja Sarkhel of West Bengal, Bengal RDF Committee Member Prasun
Chatterjee are instances enough to show how the Indian state has been
specifically targeting the RDF activists and its leadership.
RDF condemns this arrest in the strongest possible terms and
demands his immediate and unconditional release. We appeal to all
democratic and progressive individuals and organizations to stand
united and condemn his arrest and appeal for his immediate release.
Varavara Rao (President)
G N Saibaba (Joint Secretary)
####################
COMMITTEE FOR THE RELEASE OF POLITICAL PRISONERS
185/3, FOURTH
FLOOR, ZAKIR NAGAR, NEW DELHI-110025
03/09/2013
Condemn Strongly the Arrest and Frame up of RDF General
Secretary Rajkishore Singh!
Release Rajkishore Singh Immediately
and Unconditionally!
Rajkishore Singh, the General Secretary of Revolutionary
Democratic Front was today arrested from his residence in Bihar by
the police and was taken to Madhuban district to be booked in a case
of 2005 allegedly involving the CPI (Maoist). Rajkishore Singh, who
is in his mid seventies, a leader of the people’s movements against
all anti-people policies of the government had gone to his native
village in Bihar after a prolonged bout of treatment—almost two
months—at the AIIMS trauma centre as well as the AIIMS. As the
general secretary of the Revolutionary Democratic Front (RDF) he has
been staying in Delhi to fulfil the responsibilities bestowed on him
by the organisation. The said treatment at these hospitals was being
done for serious ailments to the heart and brain as he had suffered
from intermittent blackouts. A couple of months before due to
blackout he had had a bad fall resulting in the fracture of his jaw
bone and severe internal injury in both the ears. The doctors were
yet to chalk out a systematic track of treatment for the fundamental
problems that had been ailing him.
Based on the advice of the doctors as well as his desire to be
with his family for some time—as the doctors had advised him to
take only liquid food due to severe pain in the jaw while taking
solid food and the need for the fracture to get cured with little
disturbance—so that proper care can be taken for his deteriorating
health. To arrest and frame up someone in a case of 2005 is nothing
but political vendetta and deliberate harassment of people’s
leaders and activists who have dared to speak against the anti-people
policies of the state. It should be noted that Rajkishore Singh was
one of the prominent voices who had been protesting against the
Indian State’s war on the people of the subcontinent under the garb
of development. He had moved the length and breadth of the
subcontinent to mobilise people against these policies of outright
loot and plunder.
Further to deliberately target him when he is ailing especially
with a delicate constitution of his health with the need for constant
care and attendance by someone so that he should able to carry on his
daily chores without trouble is proof enough to show that this state
and it’s lawless police would desperately want such leaders and
their political convictions to die an early death. To put Rajkishore
Singh behind bars, that too with a deliberate plan to frame him up in
several cases, can really endanger his health fatally, especially, at
this juncture when he has serious neurological and cardiological
illness.
To say the least, the police and the intelligence agencies have
once violated every law in their enthusiasm to incarcerate an ailing
people’s leader. Moreover with the new regime of laws pertaining to
senior citizens in the Indian subcontinent it is shocking to note the
apparent apathy of the police and the intelligence agencies to such
legal instruments which are definite safeguards for people above
sixty from being wrongly implicated by law. Of course all such laws
and legal instruments have become the preserve for corrupt and
criminal politicians while people’s activists and their leaders are
condemned to be incarcerated by hook or crook.
It goes without saying that any serious injury to the health of
Rajkishore Singh who is already critically ill will be due to such
highhanded and arbitrary actions of the police and intelligence
agencies. Given the new regime of laws on senior citizens the lawless
police cannot get away from their responsibilities from implementing
or being sensitive to the legal instruments that safeguard senior
citizens in the subcontinent.
We demand that Rajkishore Singh be released immediately and
unconditionally!
In Solidarity,
SAR Geelani
President
Amit Bhattacharyya
Secretary General
Rona Wilson
Secretary, Public Relations
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