Thaindian News

Raipur, March 24 (IANS) The Chhattisgarh authorities Wednesday set up a panel to probe the alleged burning of tribal huts and assault on women by the security forces during anti-Maoist operations in Tarmetla village, a senior government official said.

Dantewada district collector R. Prasanna told IANS WEdnesday that a four-member panel has been formed to report on the losses due to the burning of houses in Tarmetla during the March 16 raid.

“The panel will comprise a journalist, one social worker and one government college lecturer. The committee will be headed by a sub-divisional magistrate,” he said.

The report from the committee is expected within a month.

Prasanna said the district authorities have been arranging all help to the people who are in urgent need of ration and other relief materials.

According to eyewitnesses quoted in media reports, Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) troopers along with the Koya commandos, a unit of local tribals fighting the Maoists, went on a rampage in three tribal hamlets near Tarmetla area where the outlawed rebels had slaughtered 76 troopers in April last year.

The tribals of these hamlets allege that the security force assaulted women, killed livestock and burnt nearly 200 houses over three-four days. Many were illegally detained and some people are still unaccounted for, they allege.

Rights activists have strongly condemned the brutalities by security forces and termed these as barbaric.

“The state can’t be violator of constitutional rights,” said Rajendra K. Sail, former president of the Chhattisgarh unit of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL).

A local government official at Chintagufa, a few kilometres away from Morepalli, Teemapur and Tarmetla villages where the alleged attacks occurred, termed the situation in the area as “very alarming”.

The district authorities have begun an independent probe into the incident.

The issue figured in the state assembly when opposition Congress leader and former chief minister Ajit Jogi and another party legislator Kawasi Lakhma termed the alleged police brutalities “extremely serious” and demanded discussion on it through an “adjournment motion”.

However, Dantewada police chief S.R.P. Kalluri denied the charges.

“It’s all Maoist propaganda; nothing happened there. I have not received any complaint of police brutalities,” Kalluri told IANS over phone from Dantewada town.

Tarmetla is about 500 km from state capital Raipur.

Dantewada is part of the state’s 40,000 sq km southern tip called the Bastar region where the Maoists have huge presence since late 1980s.