Cops replaced drums, clothes with detonators to implicate youths in West Singhbhum district

RANCHI: Days after the Chaibasa police claimed to have arrested six tribal youths for aiding the banned CPI (Maoist) in planting bombs and setting fire to vehicles, the gram sabha of the Tumbahaka village under the Tonto block of West Singhbhum district sent a letter to the SP, the secretary of the home department, the secretary of district legal services authority and the National Human Rights Commission seeking justice for the youths, saying they were “implicated” and their simple items “replaced” with objectionable articles.
Describing the ongoing police action in their village terrorising the poor and innocent villagers, the gram sabha narrated the villagers’ side of the story in the letter.
On February 25, the Chaibasa police told the media that six Maoists were arrested, out of whom four were held with raw materials for making bombs.
The gram sabha, however, negated the police statement and in its letter sent on March 2 said, “Four youths — Dubraj Hembram, Mangta Hembram, Tumbe Purti, and Palsingh Hembram — along with Turi Devgam of neighbouring Sarjomburu village and Champay Bahanda of Lohabera village went to the Chaibasa bazaar on February 20 to repair their ‘mandar’ (traditional drum) for the Maghe Parab festival.
It said, “As it got late, they stayed at the house of Sanjay Devgam, a relative of Turi, in Baripokhri under the West Singhbhum Mufassil police station limits.
They were carrying the four ‘mandar’ and the clothes for their kids.” The letter said at about 4 am on February 22, a police team raided the house of Sanjay Devgam and arrested the six. Terming the media reports as “false”, the letter stated, “The youths had ‘mandar’ and new clothes for their children instead of detonators and materials for making bombs.
Turi Devgam, Palsingh Hembram, and Dubraj Hembram were held from Sanjay’s house. But Mangta Hembram, Tumbe Purti and another unnamed person were not produced before the magistrate.”
The letter has pleaded for the intervention of senior police officers to ensure that the innocent villagers are not kept behind the bars. “The situation has become tense ever since the security forces entered the villages under the garb of anti-Naxal operations and threatened the villagers,” gram sabha member Gura Hembram claimed.