A Greenpeace mobile phone signal booster was confiscated by local police on Tuesday, along with other communication equipment in Amelia village in Singrauli district of Madhya Pradesh. This comes just days after the district collector promised a free and fair Gram Sabha to replace a forged resolution last year on community consent for Essar and Hindalco’s mine.
This raid comes less than a month after the Jabalpur High Court directed the SP of Singrauli to conduct an inquiry as to why an FIR was not filed on forged Gram Sabha complaint.
The court had acted on a writ petition filed by Priya Pillai, senior campaigner with Greenpeace India and member of Mahan Sangharsh Samiti (MSS) and issued an order on June 30, asking the SP to conduct an inquiry within seven days and file an FIR if a cognizable offence is found. The petitioner is to be informed in written about the outcome of the inquiry.
“This sudden raid raises rather disturbing questions. Is this raid in reaction to our writ petition in the High CourtIJ Why are the local police trying their best to stop the community of Mahan from communicating with the rest of the world,” says Hardayal Singh Gond of resident of Amelia village and member of MSS and adds, “The police had been dragging their feet in filing the FIR for the forged Gram Sabha case . But when it came to seizing communication equipment or arresting our activists, they wasted no time.”
MSS and Greenpeace India demand an explanation for the action taken by the police and declare that such acts do not deter them from carrying on their peaceful Van Stayagraha to save the forests of Mahan from the coal mine.
Priya Pillai, senior campaigner with Greenpeace India and member of Mahan Sangharsh Samiti (MSS) said, “How can we trust the promises of a fair Gram Sabha, when the police cut off communication from the rest of the world, and hold the process behind a curtainIJ”
After the arrest of four peaceful Van Satyagrahis in May this year, this is the second glaring instance of the growing police excesses to clamp down on the protest against Essar and Hindalco’s proposed coal mining project in the forests of Mahan.
Pillai said, “like the recent ‘leaked’ Intelligence Bureau (IB) report that attacked civil society groups like Greenpeace, this move further shows that authorities are clamping down on perceived threats to corporate interests.”