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V.  Abuses by the State

Although the director general of police (DGP) of Chhattisgarh stated that government security forces attend Salwa Judum rallies “because they have to be protected,”¹⁰⁰ nearly all of the people who reported Salwa Judum raids on their villages said that government security forces participated in the burnings, killings, and beatings.

When NGOs and human rights activists have brought to light human rights abuses and violations since mid-2005, the government has questioned the authenticity of their reports and largely ignored them, allowing human rights abuses and crimes to be perpetrated unchecked.¹⁰¹ Chhattisgarh officials, including state police, have repeatedly harassed journalists and activists who reported such violations and abuses.

A. Killings, beatings, burnings, and pillage

Villagers consistently said that government security forces routinely participated in Salwa Judum raids through late 2007 and a number said that these security forces were still participating in reprisals up to the present.¹⁰² A displaced person from Nayapara said, “Every day police used to come, beat us, threaten us, kill people, that’s why we got frightened to death and ran here [Andhra Pradesh].”¹⁰³

A villager from Surpanguda narrated how government security forces came in helicopters and set his village on fire:

There are around 250 huts in my village, in different clusters. One year ago when I was staying there, the police came to my village— approximately in August 2006. They came and set fire to around 26 houses. I was there when the huts were set on fire. But because my village is very big and is in clusters, my cluster was not set on fire…. But I could see what was happening from my side. The people from the village started running as soon as they heard helicopters approaching and landing. Police came in three helicopters, landed there, and set huts on fire….

The police again came a second time in October this year [2007] and set huts on fire. This time they did not come in helicopters. They came by foot, and set fire to about eight huts.¹⁰⁶

Some SPOs interviewed by Human Rights Watch also reported that government security forces participated in Salwa Judum raids. One SPO lamented how tribal communities were suffering because of the fighting: “Salwa Judum and police attack villages and burn them. It is sad because the Judum and police also kill adivasis [tribal communities] and Naxalites also kill adivasis. From both sides adivasis are getting trapped.” ¹⁰⁷ The SPO maintained that he had not joined these raids.¹⁰⁸

When Human Rights Watch asked to speak with SPOs who had accompanied Salwa Judum members to villages, one police official made an announcement among SPOs inquiring which of them had gone to villages to burn them and bring villagers to camps.¹⁰⁹ Two SPOs came forward to share their experiences. SPO Kadti Soman said that he had gone with Salwa Judum members and government security forces to Uddinguda, Barraimuga, Birla, Gaganpalli, Ikkalguda, Kattanguda, and Darbaguda villages but was reluctant to elaborate on what SPOs had done in these villages.¹¹⁰ He said, “We brought them [villagers] here [to the camp].”¹¹¹ Similarly, SPO Mandavi Mohan stated that he had gone with government security forces to Nendra in mid-2007 to “bring” villagers to the camp.¹¹²

Two other SPOs admitted to playing a role in starting the Jagargonda camp. One said, “I helped in starting the Jagargonda camp. We took the police and Judum there—we would go at around 3 or 4 a.m. for patrols and gather people. About 40-45 of us would go each time and bring people to the camp.”¹¹³ Another SPO stated, “Judum and police from Dornapal took people from Miliampalli, Kunded, Metaguda, Kodmer, and Tarlaguda to the Judum camp in Dornapal. I was part of them.”¹¹⁴

Some villagers, Salwa Judum leaders, and NGOs said that joint combing operations by government security forces and Salwa Judum have been on the decline since the monsoon season of 2007 (June to September). A common explanation is that Salwa Judum members and government security forces wait for the end of the monsoon season due to poor visibility, and increase their activities during the summer because the visibility in thickly forested areas is better then.¹¹⁵

NGOs generally felt that due to the mounting criticism of Salwa Judum, government security forces had increased their anti-Naxalite operations independent of Salwa Judum, leading to a growing fear that the number of fake “encounter killings” (executions by government security forces staged to look like self-defense) and extrajudicial killings will increase.¹¹⁶  One tribal activist who works extensively in Bijapur and Dantewada districts shared his concerns,

There is not much Salwa Judum activity now [December 2007] and Salwa Judum does not go on processions because these are too noisy and attract too much attention. Now only CRPF and SPOs go quietly and kill people. So now you will see that “fake encounters” are on the rise. There have been encounters in March and May 2007.¹¹⁷

As one senior human rights activist pointed out, such extrajudicial killings often are given a veneer of legality:

SPOs are almost all Salwa Judum fellows given legal cover by the Government…. From the completely anarchic practice of security forces accompanying a civilian vigilante group [Salwa Judum] to burn and kill, they have shifted to a formally legal regime where the forces take the SPOs along. This is accompanied by another change. Earlier they would not announce the killings committed by them. They would let the bodies rot and be consumed by animals. Now they announce “encounter killings” and conduct an inquest and an autopsy.¹¹⁸

There are already allegations of such extrajudicial killings.¹¹⁹ Human Rights Watch interviewed eyewitnesses to what official sources claim was an encounter with Naxalites in May 2007. According to the police, in an armed exchange with Naxalites, two Naxalites were killed and another was arrested in Nayapara. Villagers who witnessed the events that day alleged that the police had opened fire on unarmed civilians.

Gangi, one of the villagers, said that her nephew Baman had come to stay with her in Nayapara in Dantewada to look for employment as a laborer. Six other young men, all in their early 20s, had also come with him. They had arrived on May 16, 2007, and the next morning they went to Dantewada town to see if they could meet a labor contractor. They failed to find work and returned with food rations and vegetables that they cooked and ate. At around 11 a.m., when they were resting outside Gangi’s hut under a mantap (shed), a Marshall jeep arrived.

Baman’s cousin, Aitey, was bathing at a hand pump nearby when the jeep arrived. She said that there were children playing there and her eight-year-old son was trying to learn how to ride a bicycle. Aitey said,

I saw the Marshall. I thought that some people had come to buy some alcohol from us as people usually come for that. But several men got out and started firing at Baman and his friends. Everyone was running away from the firing. My son dropped his cycle and started running. I shouted, “Watch out, there are children!” and started running to shield my son. The men shouted back at me saying, “You are feeding Naxalites!” The firing continued. Two of Baman’s friends were killed right away. The others ran away—except Baman.¹²⁰

Meanwhile, Gangi said that she had heard the firing and had come out of her house to see what was happening:

Baman did not escape. They caught him. They would not listen to him. He tried to explain that they had come here for work. They tied up his hands and feet and started beating him. He kept screaming he was innocent, but they were beating him. He screamed for help and called out to me to give him water, but I was too scared to go near him.¹²¹

The police called in reinforcements who arrived in a van to take away Baman and the corpses. Before they left, they raided Gangi’s hut and took away everything. “They didn’t even leave a spoon,” she said.¹²²

A few hours later, a policewoman arrived and took Gangi to the police station saying that they wanted to return her things. When she went to the police station the police informed her that they had found a rifle in her hut and wanted to question her. She was held in police custody for two days. “The police kept saying, ‘Say that they [her nephew and his friends] were Naxalites and we will give all your things back.’ But how could I? I cannot commit such a sin just because they would give my things back.”¹²³

The police returned a week later and took a number of Baman’s relatives to the police station. Once again the police pressured them to change their testimony. Baman’s cousin Aitey said, “They put us under a lot of pressure, accusing us of supporting Naxalites. Then they said, ‘Say that Naxalites opened fire when the police came and that the police fired in retaliation.’ But that is a lie, so we refused.”¹²⁴

Baman has now been charged with being a Naxalite, and the trial before the criminal court is pending.

While in some cases security forces actively joined with Salwa Judum in committing human rights violations, in others they have been passive spectators who failed to maintain law and order. In one instance police did not intercede to prevent Salwa Judum members from indulging in criminal acts even in police station premises. A group of women who went to the police station to plead for the release of their family members said that Salwa Judum members came there and beat them while the police stood and watched. As one of the women described, in April or May 2006,

The police used to come and take some 20 to 30 women from our village and keep us in the police station and beat us … After about two weeks [from the first visit to the police station], the Judum people came in [to the police station] and started beating us and that was the worst beating. They would beat us in front of the police and the police would not do anything. They beat us with lathis [wooden sticks] … Many women started bleeding from their nose and mouth. I bled from my mouth. When I regained consciousness I was in the police station compound itself. I had bruises all over my body and was swollen. Even today my left shoulder and left thigh hurt from the beating.¹²⁵

B. Arbitrary detention, torture, and “disappearances”

Chhattisgarh police arbitrarily detain villagers as alleged Naxalites, and beat and question them about Naxalite activities. Villagers from Dantewada and Bijapur districts reported that police detained them for periods ranging from one day to one month, beat them, interrogated them for information regarding Naxalites, and then released them without producing them before any magistrate, or lodging a criminal case. ¹²⁶ Villagers interviewed by Human Rights Watch reported six cases of arbitrary detention involving 34 persons. According to their accounts, a majority of the detainees were beaten while in police custody. One police informer candidly admitted that police beat suspected Naxalites who do not surrender.¹²⁷

India is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which requires a state to specify the legal basis on which individuals may be deprived of their liberty, and the procedures to be used for arrests and detentions.¹²⁸ Only arrests and detentions conducted in accordance with such rules are considered lawful.

Article 22 of the Indian Constitution provides that a detainee “shall be produced before the nearest magistrate within a period of twenty-four hours of such arrest excluding the time necessary for the journey from the place of arrest to the court of the magistrate and no such person shall be detained in custody beyond the said period without the authority of a magistrate.”¹²⁹ In addition, all arrests and detentions should be in accordance with the D.K. Basu guidelines issued by the Supreme Court of India.¹³⁰ These guidelines state that the police should arrange for regular medical examinations of detainees every 48 hours, detainees should be allowed to contact their lawyers during interrogation, and a friend or relative of the detainee should be informed of the arrest and the location of detention.¹³¹ Children should be arrested and tried in accordance with the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000. This law forbids the police from arresting and detaining children in police lock-ups or jail. It requires the police to transfer child detainees to a juvenile home immediately after arrest.¹³²

One villager from Lingagiri recounted how around April or May 2006 the police detained and beat him along with seven others:

After the [Salwa Judum] meeting in Basaguda, that is, after about two months [of the Salwa Judum meeting], the police came and took us to the police station—eight of us. They came at 6 a.m. and took us. Police came to arrest some people. A few boys came running into my house for shelter. I came out to protect them but got arrested myself. I was also beaten a little but the other boys got beaten severely—with dandas [thick wooden sticks]. They kept me in the police station for eight days. We were all detained, questioned about Naxalites, and asked to show where Naxalites were.¹³³

Two of the eight detainees were children who were studying in class 10 at the time of arrest. He continued,

One of the boys got beaten a lot with the butt of the rifle—and he got beaten all over his body. He was screaming a lot and became unconscious. Two people were detained in the police station as guarantee when the others were released. The police told us that if anything happens to them [police] and Naxalites attack them, then they will send the boys to jail. [name withheld] is the class 10 student who was beaten badly. The two people who were detained as guarantee are [name withheld], also a class 10 student, and his father [name withheld].¹³⁴

Another villager from Lingagiri narrated how the police tried to lure him with a cash award to go into a school and recover a rifle which they said the Naxalites had left behind. He said he recognized the police’s request as a ploy to plant evidence on him and arrest him as a Naxalite. When he refused to go into the school, the police repeatedly pushed his face into a nearby stream, took him to the police station, and beat him. As he described, in mid-2006,

The police came at around 2 p.m. in the afternoon when I was relaxing with my child at home. They barged into my house and took me and tied my hands at the back. They told me that they had not seen me around earlier and so I must be a Naxalite. They also threatened to kill me if I attempted to run away…. When we reached the school the police asked me to go inside the school and bring a rifle that they knew Naxalites had hidden. They said, “Naxalites have kept a rifle in that school, go and get it and the government will give you 1,500 rupees [roughly US$37]. Government will also give you a uniform.” I refused to go inside the school. I realized that it was a trap and that the police would take a picture of me with the rifle if I picked it up, kill me, and pass me off as a Naxalite. They kept me there for about 45 minutes. At the stream they dunked me in the water 3-4 times and started interrogating me regarding the whereabouts of Naxalites, asking me to show them where Naxalites were, and threatened to kill me. They did this for about 30 minutes.¹³⁵

He said that the police subsequently took him to the police station, called some Salwa Judummembers, and asked them whether they recognized him. Since he had met some of them at village cockfights on market days, they recognized him, and told the police he was not a Naxalite. The police then released him. He said that he saw around 100 detainees kept in a thatched-roof shed inside the police station compound.¹³⁶

Tati Somesh from Sunnamguda said that the police detained him for 18 days, beat him, and tortured him with electrical charges:

In 2005, the police took me to the Konta police station. They said I was a Naxalite. One afternoon when I was having tea in a roadside shack two policemen came and took me in a vehicle. They put me in a room in the police station and started beating me. Five people wearing uniforms beat me. They beat me with rods and also ran electric current through my body…. They kept me in the police station for 18 days. They beat me on my face and head till I started bleeding from my nose. They were all drunk at night and asked me where I had planted bombs. They told me that they will give me lots of money—lakhs and lakhs [hundreds of thousands] if I admitted to having planted bombs. When they beat me, I became unconscious. Later they passed electric current through my body—they put the rods on my hands and on my buttocks. Throughout I was handcuffed and kept in a room…. They did not lodge any case against me. After I was released I stayed in my house for a few days, and left my village.¹³⁷

A woman from Nendra said she saw the police take away her sister in 2006. As of December 2007 there was no news of her whereabouts. The guidelines issued by the Supreme Court of India in D.K. Basu’s case state that the relatives or friends of a detainee have the right to know the location where a detainee is being held. Since the police did not disclose any information about the fate of the detainee or the location, the detention is considered an enforced disappearance under international law.¹³⁸ Describing how her sister was taken away, the eyewitness said, 

When they [police] came the second time, my sister and I were picking [vegetables]in the fields. Police came and I just managed to run away. When I turned around and saw, they had caught my younger sister and she was being taken away. She was about 16 or 17 years old then. I did not wait to see anything else because I was scared and I kept running. She did not come back at all…. We have no news of her until today. On the same day they took 10 people from old Nendra. I knew one of them—Veko Dhula, about 50 years old. I do not know the others personally. We heard that they were taken to the Errabore police station but after that we do not know what happened to them. We have had no news of these 10 people.¹³⁹ 

C. Failure of the government to investigate abuses

Even though Chhattisgarh state government officials maintain that they “are committed to the Rule of Law” and “[t]here is no failure on the part of State of Chhattisgarh [to investigate] and therefore independent investigation is uncalled for and unwarranted,”¹⁴⁰ police and other state government officials were unable to provide Human Rights Watch with any information regarding the investigation or prosecution of members of government security forces or Salwa Judum for human rights abuses and crimes. Several NGO fact-finding teams have exposed these human rights abuses, and recommended that the government initiate investigations.¹⁴¹  

Senior police officials from Chhattisgarh contend that Salwa Judum is a peaceful movement but admit that some abuses occurred “initially.”¹⁴² They maintain, however, that such abuses are “no longer occurring.”¹⁴³ In response to Human Rights Watch’s concern that abuses by Salwa Judum members and government security forces are ongoing, the Dantewada superintendent of police said,

What is Salwa Judum? Can you define it? There are only people in camps now. There is no such thing as Salwa Judum anymore. It is just a name that has stuck on…. Initially there were some complaints of SPOs bullying civilians and we have removed these SPOs.¹⁴⁴

Similarly, according to the director general of police of Chhattisgarh, during the early days of Salwa Judum in 2005, “SPOs’ anger was high and they became unruly because they had lost family members.”¹⁴⁵

Contrary to official claims that abuses occurred only in the “initial” stages due to the “anger of SPOs,” villagers shared with Human Rights Watch stories of abuses and reprisals by Salwa Judum members and government security forces (not limited to SPOs) through December 2007.¹⁴⁶ Human Rights Watch also documented extrajudicial killings by CRPF as recently as May 2008. Advocate Sudha Bharadwaj, a member of the fact-finding team that investigated these extrajudicial killings in Cherpal camp in Bijapur district, said,

CRPF woke up everyone, including children, at around 3 a.m. and asked them to come out of their huts and sit. When people protested, or requested that they be allowed to use the toilet, they were beaten. The CRPF commander in charge apparently gave instructions that if anyone opened their mouth then he or she should be shot. Following this, one of the CRPF members opened fire and killed a 22-year-old unmarried girl and a three-year-old baby. The Raman Singh government [Chhattisgarh government] has now withdrawn the two CRPF companies that were posted near Cherpal at the time of this incident and replaced them with fresh CRPF companies.¹⁴⁷

Even though they stated that criminal complaints were registered and some SPOs were removed,¹⁴⁸ none of the officials was able to provide Human Rights Watch with further details despite repeated requests for such details in December 2007, February 2008, and May 2008.¹⁴⁹ In its April 2007 response to an application under the Right to Information Act, 2005, the office of the police superintendent of Dantewada replied that it had not registered any criminal complaints against SPOs, indicating that the police took no action between June 2005 and April 2007, and contradicting claims to the contrary by officials.¹⁵⁰ 

Other government bodies have also failed to take action against Salwa Judum members and government security forces for human rights abuses. The Chhattisgarh State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) has the power to conduct suo motu investigation into human rights abuses within the state.¹⁵¹ SHRC is also empowered to initiate action based on complaints received by it.¹⁵² But its members told Human Rights Watch that they had not initiated any suo motu investigation into human rights abuses.¹⁵³ They further stated that they had not received any complaints regarding Salwa Judum or Naxalite abuses against villagers from Dantewada and Bijapur districts.¹⁵⁴ However, local NGOs said that they had submitted many complaints to the SHRC that went uninvestigated.¹⁵⁵

On April 15, 2008, in response to a petition presented before it in 2007, the Supreme Court of India ordered the NHRC to “examine/verify” allegations of human rights abuses and submit a report to the court.¹⁵⁶ The court further ordered the Indian central and Chhattisgarh state governments to cooperate during the inquiry.¹⁵⁷

D. Government intimidation of NGOs, journalists, and lawyers

Lawyers, NGOs, and journalists told Human Rights Watch that they feel insecure and fear arbitrary arrest as Naxalite sympathizers whenever they voice criticism of government policy on the Naxalite issue or criticize the Salwa Judum campaign.¹⁵⁸

In 2006 the Chhattisgarh government introduced special security legislation called the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, 2005, which is a vague and overly broad law that allows detention of up to three years for “unlawful activities.”¹⁵⁹ The term is so loosely defined in law that it allows for arbitrary detention and threatens fundamental freedoms guaranteed by the Indian Constitution and international human rights law. For example, it could severely restrict peaceful activities of individuals and civil society organizations.¹⁶⁰

The Asian Centre for Human Rights, a prominent Indian NGO, points out in its 2006 report that the Chhattisgarh law lacks even the basic safeguards incorporated under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, a federal law that is already criticized for being draconian in nature.¹⁶¹ Lawyer K.P. Agarwal in Jagdalpur, for instance, said that the police could use the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act at any time to detain someone: “After you leave, someone can come and tell me that I had met Maoists, and put me in jail.”¹⁶²

Binayak Sen, a doctor who worked on tribal community health issues for over 25 years in Chhattisgarh, and an activist and general secretary of the Chhattisgarh state level unit of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, was arrested on May 17, 2007, on charges of indulging in unlawful activities as defined under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, and other crimes under Indian penal law.¹⁶³ Many NGOs, doctors, activists, and academics including professors Noam Chomsky, Romila Thapar, Jean Dreze, and Irfan Habib have called for his release.¹⁶⁴ They believe that his arrest was politically motivated and that he was targeted for documenting and protesting human rights abuses committed by Salwa Judum members and government security forces.¹⁶⁵ He is still in judicial custody facing criminal trial.

In addition to using the Chhattisgarh security law, activists and journalists who reported human rights abuses have complained of harassment by Chhattisgarh government officials. For example, Himanshu Kumar runs an NGO called Vanvasi Chetna Ashram and has worked for over 15 years in Dantewada and Bijapur districts. He implements government programs on health, nutrition, and education. He has a number of workers in the field and they have become an important source of information about the conflict in Dantewada and Bijapur districts. Himanshu opposes the violent methods adopted by Naxalites. But he opposes Salwa Judum more vociferously. Since June 2005 he has assisted several fact-finding teams that investigated human rights abuses in these districts. He told Human Rights Watch that he faces harassment from government officials because his public comments against Salwa Judum and assistance to other human rights groups has led the government to assume that he is a Naxalite supporter. In December 2006 some of his workers were attacked by SPOs. Himanshu tried to file criminal complaints against them in January 2007 for taking away his staff members’ bikes, and abducting and beating other staff. As of February 2008 the police had not taken any action against them.¹⁶⁶

Many journalists who are critical of Salwa Judum have been threatened, beaten, or arrested by Chhattisgarh government officials. Activists and journalists feel that the Chhattisgarh government uses its security legislation to impose curbs on the press, particularly newspapers and other media outlets that are critical of Salwa Judum and the police.

Santosh Poonyem, a former Salwa Judum leader and Bijapur bureau chief of Dainik Prakhar Samachar, a daily Hindi newspaper, complained that he faced harassment from the police:

I started reporting these incidents [abuses by Salwa Judum members and government security forces] to the IG [inspector general of police of Chhattisgarh], CM [chief minister of Chhattisgarh], and district collector. The new [Bijapur District] Collector Ken promised security for me but nothing was delivered. The police took me to the police station in October this year [2007] and threatened to kill me. They showed me a gun, held me at gunpoint, and said I would be killed if I don’t say whatever they ask me to say in the newspapers…. I have two brothers—one is working in the BRO’s [block revenue officer] office and the other is in Raipur, working with the police. My brother who works in the BRO’s office was beaten up severely and was admitted in the hospital for four days. The Judum beat him.¹⁶⁷

Kamlesh Paikra, a former journalist with Hind Sath, a Hindi newspaper, was forced to stop reporting because of police threats and harassment. He said,

I was a reporter for Hind Sath and published a news item about Salwa Judum—that they had burned Mankeli village in September 2005. After this news item got published, my elder brother was taken to the police station and beaten, and they charged him with being a Naxalite. He was sent to jail. I also learnt that the police were planning to kill me in an encounter. So along with my family, I left our house in Cherpal—15 kilometers from Bijapur … I do not report anymore. It is difficult to be independent and report because there is severe pressure from the administration.¹⁶⁸

The report by the international press organization Reporters sans Frontieres (RSF) on Chhattisgarh documents five more instances of police beatings, harassment, and restriction of movement of journalists, which involved nine journalists and their crews.¹⁶⁹ RSF and the International Press Institute have criticized Chhattisgarh government’s suppression of freedom of expression and opinion.¹⁷⁰

Activists and journalists who attended peaceful protests and meetings to discuss Salwa Judum-related issues also have been harassed by the police. Manish Kunjam, a former member of the Chhattisgarh legislative assembly is opposed to Salwa Judum and organized a protest rally in November 2007 in Jagdalpur. According to him around 200,000 people attended it. “Villagers from Geedam area were not allowed to attend the protest rally,” said Manish Kunjam.¹⁷¹ Further describing the nature of problems they faced, he said,

The administration heard about our rally and spread rumors that villagers were planning to come to Jagdalpur and attack people. We had a lot of difficulty organizing it. Villagers were carrying their [food] rations, water, and other household items because they walked for three or four days from interior areas and they were stopped on the way [by the police]. The police wanted us to ask them to leave all their things behind but how could we ask them to do that? They would have all starved.¹⁷²

One villager from Pidmel claimed that one of the participants was arrested: “Recently, people from our village were going to Jagdalpur to attend the meeting organized by Manish Kunjam. On the way to Sukma, SPOs abducted Musaki Unga (about age 25) and took him to Dornapal police station and did not release him.” ¹⁷³           

Shubhranshu Choudhary, one of the moderators of Chhattisgarh Net or CGNet (www.cgnet.in), an online citizen journalism initiative, reported to Human Rights Watch other cases of harassment by police. CGNet organizes an annual meeting called the Dream Chhattisgarh Meet.¹⁷⁴ According to Choudhary, Chhattisgarh police harassed many participants at the third annual meeting that was held from December 28 to December 30, 2007, in Raipur. Some displaced persons who fled from Chhattisgarh and settled in Andhra Pradesh had also joined the gathering. SPOs threatened these displaced persons and prevented them from addressing the gathering.¹⁷⁵

Choudhary also said that in three or four cases, Chhattisgarh police visited participants’ homes in various parts of Chhattisgarh while they were at the meeting. In the case of Tulsiram Yadav, police waited at his house and arrested him as soon as he returned home after the meeting. According to Choudhary, some participants were so intimidated that they were reluctant to tell their stories to the press and lawyers at the meeting. Instead, they returned home immediately, changing routes and cars numerous times to avoid the police.¹⁷⁶

The Chhattisgarh police also reopened a long-dormant case against a brother of a journalist who was attending this meeting. They arrested him on charges of being a Naxalite after his brother wrote articles about the atrocities of Salwa Judum and SPOs. Several journalists who had intended to describe their own experiences of being beaten up by Salwa Judum members refrained from doing so at the meeting because they feared similar reprisals. ¹⁷⁷