THE death of Comrade Sudip Chongdar, who was the West Bengal State Secretary of the Maoist Party, in prison for want of medical attention, amounts to a custodial killing, which the CPI(ML) strongly condemns.
Comrade Sudip Chongdar was a political prisoner in West Bengal, since his arrest in 2010. One of the promises on which the TMC Government and Mamata Banerjee were elected to power, was that of releasing all political prisoners. The committee for the release of political prisoners, headed by retired Justice Maloy Sengupta, had also recommended release of all political prisoners. Yet the TMC Government reneged on the promise and failed to implement the recommendation. Instead it has been violating human rights of political prisoners in jails, and has been liberally invoking draconian laws to create new political prisoners. The denial of medical care is a grave human rights violation and a resulting death is a custodial killing. Custodial deaths in West Bengal prisons are extremely high: a report by the West Bengal Human Rights Commission (WBHRC) had shown that there had been a 100 custodial deaths between November 2016 and May 2017.
The CPI(ML) Liberation demands action against the prison authorities for the custodial death of Comrade Sudip Chongdar; a Supreme Court monitored investigation take place into the condition of prisons and correctional facilities in West Bengal and other states; and release of all political prisoners in West Bengal and all over India.
