Tribal activist and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Soni Sori has accused the Dantewada district police of killing a tribal farmer in Dantewada, calling him a Maoist, and burning his body to destroy evidence.
Bhima Madavi, the farmer from Nilavay village under the Aranpur police station of Dantewada, was found dead on the evening of October 6. The body bore bullet injuries. “It was someone from the police who shot Bhima Madavi. Hundreds of policemen were present in the area when the incident took place. The villagers of Nilavay are also making the same claim,” Ms. Sori told The Hindu .
The Dantewada police, she said, tried to destroy evidence by “forcibly burning” the body. “When I got to know of the incident, I told the villagers to preserve the body and that I would take them to the Aranpur station to file a complaint. We also wanted a post-mortem done; but before I could reach the village on Thursday, hundreds of policemen reached there and forcibly cremated the body,” she said.
The police denied the charges and said Bhima Madavi was a Maoist militia member. “We received information about a large Maoist gathering near Nilavay on the night of October 5. Around 350 policemen from the District Reserve Guard (DRG) and the Special Task Force (STF), divided into seven teams, were sent to the location the same night. An encounter took place near the village and our men recovered Maoist material from the spot and returned on the evening of October 6. The next day, we got the information that a Maoist militia member had been killed in the encounter,” Additional Superintendent of Police (operations) Goraknath Baghel said.
“A police team went to the village to collect the body on Thursday; however, on seeing the police, the villagers hurriedly cremated it. We also wanted to do post-mortem,” Mr. Baghel said.
A journalist in Dantewada, however, told this correspondent that the police took an entire day to declare Bhima Madavi a Maoist. “We spread a message on different WhatsApp groups on the evening of October 6 that a body was lying near Nilavay. There was no response from the police. But on the next day, when Soni Sori decided to visit the village, the police hurriedly declared that a Maoist member was killed in an encounter in the area,” he said, requesting anonymity.
