Friday, December 9, 2016

India: Political Prisoners To Go On Hunger Strike, Protesting Nilambur Encounter Killings: A Hunger Strike will be observed by all the political prisoners kept under trial on Friday the 9th December 2016 in all prisons in South Indian States.




On 24 November 2016, two Maoist leaders were killed by Kerala’s Thunderbolt police in Nilambur forest area. Kuppu Devaraj, a senior member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), and Ajitha, a woman leader of the group’s Karnataka wing were those killed. They do not have any cases registered against them in Kerala state. However, the Kerala Police preferred to kill them.

There is no doubt that CPI (Marxist) is in a hurry to prove their sincerity and submission to central government led by Narendra Modi. The Kerala government led by Pinarayi Vijayan of CPI (M) does not differ with the central government’s doctrine of eliminating all tribal voices to serve Mining Barons.

Beyond these killings, several hundreds of political workers leading tribal struggles are kept without trial in several prisons across Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. These prisoners demand the government to:

· Stop all Political Killings in the name of Encounters

· File First Information Reports (FIR) against those officers involved and book them for Murder

· Order a Judicial Investigation by a serving High court Judge

A Hunger Strike will be observed by all the political prisoners kept under trial on Friday the 9th December 2016 in all prisons in South Indian States.

Statement issued by

Ms.Chandra and Kala, Women Prison, Trichy

Ms. Sayna, Women Prison, Coimbatore

Ms. Reena Joyce Mary, Women Prison, Vellore

Mr. Mahalingam, Vivek, Balamurugan, Central Prison, Madurai

Mr.Rupesh, Veeramani, Kannan, Anoop, Central Prison, Coimbatore

Mr.Sundaramurthy, Puzhal Central Prison, Chennai

Mr.Ranjit, Central Prison, Tirunelvely

Statement issued by Centre for Protection of Democratic Rights, Tamil Nadu