Urgent Appeal of the Peoples Union For Democratic Rights for the liberation of Bijoy alias Prasad
On the evening of 29 December 2005, we
received information from PUCL Chhatisgarh about a CPI (Maoist) leader and
Central Committee member, Mr. Bijoy alias Prasad having disappeared from Raipur since the evening
of 28.12.2005, where he had gone for medical treatment.
PUDR has recently highlighted
the lawlessness with which police and paramilitary forces have been conducting
themselves in anti-naxalite operations in Chhatisgarh. Tribals in Bastar are
being killed by the security forces and the dead bodies are being disposed off
without even a record. Given this context we felt there was an immediate threat
to the life of the 67 year old arrested CPI (Maoist) leader.
The Home Secretary (Chattisgarh)
confirmed both to us and to PUCL (Chattisgarh) on the night of 30 December
that Mr. Prasad was indeed in detention by Andhra Pradesh police in Raipur, but
had not been formally arrested.
However when contacted by
presspersons on December 31 morning, the Home Secretary (Chattisgarh) refused
to confirm that Mr Prasad had been detained. A senior officer of the A.P.
police, who was contacted by the Human Rights Forum (Andhra Pradesh), also
denied that Mr. Prasad was in their custody.
In these circumstances there is
still a threat to the life of the CPI(Maoist) leader.
We request you to immediately
contact the authorities in Delhi,
Chattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh and ask that they respect the rule of law and
immediately announce the detention of Mr Prasad and register a formal
arrest.
People to contact:
Chief Secretary Chattisgarh Tel: *+91-771-*2331883
Home Secretary (Chattisgarh) B.K.S. Ray Tel: +919893262777
Email: bksray@nic.in
DG (Police) Andhra Pradesh Swaranjit Sen Tel:
91-40-23232831 & 91-40-23235170
Fax: 91-40-23296565
Secretary, Ministry of Home
Affairs, Government of India V.K . Duggal
Tel: 91-11-23092989 and
91-11-23093031 Fax: 91-11-23093003
Chairman, National Human Rights
Commission
Fax: 91-11-23382911
Email: covdnhrc@nic.in
Deepika Tandon
Secretary, PUDR
