How to stop the killings of Adivasis in Bastar?

Raipur (Team Newsbuddy): Under the aegis of the Chhattisgarh unit of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, a discussion and public hearing on the topic “How to stop the killings of tribals in Bastar” was organized by the tribal women of Bastar at the divisional headquarters Jagdalpur recently. More than 100 victims from various places of Bastar participated in this discussion and public hearing.
The objectives of this Discussion and Public Hearing are :
An investigation on the situations of the extrajudicial killings of countless innocent tribal villagers and their illegal detention in jail.
Testimonies of the victim’s family members, eyewitnesses and villagers in the context of continuously increasing incidents of fake encounter in Bastar.
Main reasons and legal remedies for the failure on the ground of constitutional and legal provisions for the protection of indigenous tribal people in conflict zone.
Solidarity statement of intellectuals in favor of oppressed tribals struggling for justice.
Constitutional rights of tribal people and accountability of the democratic state for its compliance.

Dr. Colin Gonsalves is a designated Senior Advocate of the Supreme Court of India. He is an expert in human rights protection, labor laws and public interest laws. He has been awarded the Right Livelihood Award for the year 2017 for his “tireless and innovative use of public interest litigations over more than three decades to secure fundamental human rights for India’s most marginalized and vulnerable citizens”. He was a special participant at this event as a supporter of PUCL.
Justice (Retd.) A.K. Patnaik, retired Justice of the Supreme Court of India and retired Chief Justice of Madhya Pradesh High Court was also scheduled to attend this programme, but due to some reason he could not attend it.
The topic of the first session was – “A look at extrajudicial killings, illegal detention of innocent tribal villagers and conditions of detention in jails in Bastar”. The session was addressed by Soni Sodi and Hidme Markam, senior human rights activists. They told that according to local villagers and news, till now 46 incidents of encounter have taken place in Bastar in the year 2024, in which about 168 tribals have lost their lives. Villagers have raised serious questions on all these encounters and deaths.
In the second, fifth and sixth sessions, the victims narrated their ordeal. Video statements of more than 70 victims from Bastar have been recorded through the public hearing. All of them voluntarily told their pain that their family members have been tortured in the name of maoists, imprisoned in fake cases, killed in encounters and women raped. Most of such incidents that happen in the interior areas do not come to light. The victims who recorded their statements included women, men, youth and children. The victim families said that after losing their loved ones, they are wandering from door to door for justice, the government is not listening and tribals are being killed. The tribals said that the bloodshed that has been going on in Bastar for the last three decades should stop. In this, tribals are being killed from all sides, their existence is in danger.
A large number of victims were coming from Bijapur, Dantewada, Sukma, Narayanpur, Kondagaon and many areas of Bastar. But the police stopped many people midway. Many people from Maad area across the Indravati river could not come to this program and tell their stories.
During this public hearing, the tribal youth also presented many self-written and self-composed songs in Gondi and Hindi, in which they expressed their pain and sorrow, demanded justice and expressed their desire to live with self-respect and peace as citizens of the country according to the Constitution