Version imprimablePRESS RELEASE:
Statement of the Chhattisgarh Bachao Andolan on the recent Supreme Court judgment in the case of the Gompad Massacre of 2009
On 14th July 2022, Supreme Court dismissed a writ petition filed by Himanshu Kumar and twelve other people in a 2009 case that sought an independent investigation in the extra-judicial killings of Adivasis in the villages of (then Dantewada) now Sukma district of Chhattisgarh. This came to be known as the Gompad massacre, and it includes two major incidents of violence in September and October 2009 that happened in the villages of Gompad and Gachchanpalli along with 2-3 smaller incidents nearby, in which at least 17 adivasis were killed.
While dismissing this writ petition, the Supreme Court has imposed exemplary costs of Rs. 5 lakhs on Himanshu Kumar and has suggested that further action can be taken against the petitioners by the State of Chhattisgarh / CBI, for falsely charging the Police and Security forces, for hatching a criminal conspiracy, among other sections of the IPC. We, the civil society organizations and people associated with the Human Rights movement in Chhattisgarh are alarmed to note that this judgment has virtually made the pursuit of justice in a judicial court a criminal act itself. This judgment is a threat to the very existence of human rights advocacy and systems of accountability from the Police and Security Forces in Chhattisgarh, especially Bastar.
Himanshu Kumar, who is Petitioner no. 1 in this case, is a Gandhian who has been working in Bastar for over three decades and has consistently helped in bringing out the human rights violations against the Adivasi people of Bastar to light. The other twelve petitioners, in this case, are family members of the people killed in the Gompad massacre. The judgment brazenly targets Himanshu Kumar, by saying that Petitioner no. 1, who runs a NGO has put up this entire petition when there is no need for further investigation into the killings in Gompad, let alone the appointment of an independent agency.
As noted above, two incidents of September 17 and October 1, 2009 resulted in the killing of at least seventeen Adivasi people from the villages of Gachchanpalli, Gompad, Nulkatong, and the forest of Singanmadgu among other nearby villages, along with several other people who were harassed and brutalized during these attacks. Several media reports, as well as fact-finding reports of civil society groups, corroborate these incidents of violence by the Special Police Officers (SPOs) and the CoBRA (CRPF) Security forces of the region at the time. Media reports of intimidation and harassment of eye-witnesses to the attacks on the villages, surfaced as the case against the Police and Security Forces moved ahead in the Supreme Court.
By rejecting the plea for an independent investigation, this judgment turns the principle of natural justice on its head. It should be recalled that it was the result of people
