That was January 2024 New Year. The world was full of happiness. Some people drunk at 12 midnight, may have drunk again in the morning before the dizziness subsided and drowned in happiness. We adivasis do not know such things. We have since 2005, tears of hardship, Greenhunt since 2017, Samadhaan since 2022 and then Surajkund attack. We don’t know what the new year means. All we know is how today goes well.
Because in India, the highest number of central armed forces after Kashmir are in Bastar. In addition to this, the human faced blood-suckers (I don’t how I could call them) who ran away from our villages and incarnate as DRGs, would descend on any village at any time. Adivasi houses get burnt to ashes and women are raped. Adivasi farmer who goes to the forest encounters a dead body in the field. We never know when a man or a women gets imprisoned for years in fabricated cases, when they seize away our money, chickens, goats, pigs, and even the clothes we use on our lives. That’s why we don’t know what the new year means.
We know that if we want to get our land, our forest and our water, we must fight. We have been fighting for our survival since two or three years. No government is stopping the police camps, roads and bridges. Because they want our wealth which is more important to them than our lives. So year after year they keep putting up camps on camps.
We are in Gangalur area of Bijapur district. 13 police camps were set up in three years. Two of our villages are within half an hour’s travel distance in that area. There is a huge pylon for Women Martyrs of Kavad. Our village is half an hour away from there. We call it Muddum. Govt calls it Muduvendi. The police camped in Kavad and reached our village using various vehicles. They were supervising the construction of road staying there, in the surrounding forest and on the way. They demolish any houses that come on the way they build the road. Modi’s rule introduced this bulldozer culture. This infamous achievement will stand in the name of Modi in history. This is their so called Hindu culture. Since our hut is also near the road, I was afraid that my house also will be demolished. So while carrying my six-month-old baby and doing daily chores I was looking around the house since early morning. I was standing in front of the house at around three to four in the evening. Auto firing was done at once. Before I could recover, a bullet hit my fingers and passed through the abdomen of my six-month-old baby. She lost her life in my arms. The firing batch left, as I was shouting at them and crying. Soon another police batch came and took me and my dead baby to Bijapur. There the whole story was made up and the Bijapur SI gave a statement in the media on the second day. In the evening of January 1st, a false propaganda began saying that a six-month-old baby was killed and a woman was injured by a bullet fired by naxalites in an encounter with the police. Moreover, they said that they will give five lakhs to the baby and two lakhs to me so that truth doesn’t come out. Will my child come alive with that money?
Since then they are keeping a watch that no one would enter our village. This terrible thing the police did to me should not happen to anyone. I will fight until they are punished. Hope you all will support us against this injustice.
