If my party, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), wants, I will contest election from Bastar lok Sabha seat, said Soni Sori who was released on bail from Supreme Court recently after being arrested on the charges of acting as a conduit of Maoists.
Sori, a suspended tribal teacher from Maoist stronghold Bastar region who recently joined the AAP in New Delhi, accused the Superintendent of Police of her home district (Bijapur) Ankit Garg for ordering of her immense torture when she was under police custody.
Sori who was in the State capital Raipur to attend Aam Aadmi Party’s State level conference, said her fight would continue until the said the police officer was sent to jail.
Addressing the conference, the woman activist said when she was in jail she had never thought one day she would be able to come out from the jail. “Since I am educated, I managed to give a determined fight to get justice. This fight was not for Soni Sori, it was fight of a woman,’’ she said.
She also said she faced all the humiliation on the direction of the superintendent of police Ankit Garg but today, the same police officer has been awarded by the President. Narrating her tale, Sori said her husband was killed as a part of a well hatched conspiracy and her children became orphans. It happened not only with her, there are thousands of people in violence-hit Bastar region who have been meted out with such injustice.
The activist said she was kept in various jails from time to time by changing place from one to another. She said she was kept in the jails of Jagdalpur, Raipur, Kolkata, and Tihar. Audience clapped to express their solidarity, as soon as her voice choked while narrating her plight.
Soni said even she was subjected to strip search, kept nude in the jail. At that time she had written a letter to Chief Minister Raman Singh for justice, but neither the Chief Minister nor any body from his or other parties helped her. “Was I am not a sister or daughter of the Chief Minister” she asked.
Describing the horrific situation in her area, she said a gang has been working in Bastar area which has been forcing people to take arm. Those who helped Naxal are now sitting as Member of Parliament, she said. Sori threatened that she will expose both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party at appropriate time.
Speaking to office bearers of the party, State convenor of the Aam Admi Party election campaign committee Sanket Thakur said it was the liquor mafia which is running the Government in the State.
People are fed up with both BJP and Congress. More than three thousands innocent tribals are languishing in jails. He said the country will see a massive political change in the ensuing lok Sabha election.