Human Rights Watch has accused the government-supported vigilante group Salwa Judum, battling Naxalite insurgents in Chhattisgarh, of intimidation, rape and the killing of innocent people

A Human Rights Watch report has called on the Indian government to stop supporting the controversial anti-insurgency militia, the Salwa Judum. The 182-page report ‘Being neutral is our biggest crime: Government Vigilante and Naxalite abuses in India’s Chhattisgarh state’ says that Salwa Judum members have intimidated, beaten, raped and killed civilians in the state of Chhattisgarh while the authorities looked the other way.

Though the Indian government calls the Salwa Judum a spontaneous people’s movement to fight Maoist/Naxalite insurgents who have been fighting the government in this and adjoining areas for many years, it is well known that the Salwa Judum is a government-backed and supported vigilante group.

The problem is that it uses many of the same violent tactics as the Naxalites against those villagers it believes are Naxalite supporters. Human Rights Watch says the Salwa Judum militia routinely abuses poor villagers, thousands of whom have fled or been uprooted from their homes and ancestral lands because of the armed conflict. The report says members of the Salwa Judum, sometimes in collusion with the police, have burned down villages to force residents to leave, extorted money to fund their activities, stolen food, sexually assaulted women, carried out summary executions and recruited children into its ranks.

The report acknowledges that the Naxalites have committed similar abuses. Caught in the middle of the State vs Naxals battle are ordinary folk, mostly poor, rural and lower caste. “People were forced to take sides. Neutrality was not even an option,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, one of the researchers of the report that is based on dozens of witness accounts collected in late-2007 and early-2008, in Chhattisgarh.

As a result of the violence an estimated 100,000 people have been displaced and dispossessed, ending up in Salwa Judum refugee camps, or have sought refuge in neighbouring states.

The report says those who refused to join the militia or to move to Salwa Judum camps found themselves victims of brutal reprisals. “There were around 50 huts in my village, and all were burned by Salwa Judum members and police,” one resident of Kamarguda village recounted to Human Rights Watch. “They also killed three people -- slit open their throats.”

Another finding of the report is that in the Salwa Judum camps, state police recruited underage youths as auxiliary police officers. Although the state government claims that all minors have now been removed from the police ranks, there is no evidence that any system has been introduced to identify teenagers and release them. The Naxalites resort to similar indoctrination and recruitment of youngsters.

Hunan Rights Watch is not alone in its criticism. In April 2008, the Supreme Court ordered the National Human Rights Commission to investigate allegations of abuse by the Salwa Judum.

Source: The Indian Express, July 17, 2008
           Los Angeles Times, July 15, 2008