Chhattisgarh: Rights group demands release of Adivasi activist Suneeta Pottam

Human rights organisation People’s Union for Civil Liberties has demanded the release of Adivasi rights activist Suneeta Pottam, who was arrested by the police in Chhattisgarh’s Raipur on June 3.

Pottam, who is 26 years old, had protested a spate of extra judicial killings of villagers in Bijapur in 2016.

She had gathered evidence to show that the victims were not Naxalites but ordinary villagers who had been shot by security forces. She then filed a petition with the evidence in the Chhattisgarh High Court. The case was later transferred to the Supreme Court and tagged with another case, Nandini Sundar and Ors v State of Chhattisgarh, better known as the Salwa Judum case, where it is still pending.

At around 8.30 am on June 3, a team of the Bijapur district police allegedly stormed Pottam’s residence at a women’s collective in Raipur. She was allegedly manhandled while being taken into custody.

Pottam later found out that she had been arrested in connection with five cases. She is being held in a prison in Jagdalpur.

Pottam is an executive committee member with the People’s Union for Civil Liberties and is a founding member of the Moolwasi Bachao Manch, an Adivasi youth group that documents human rights violations in the state.

“It is to be...

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