Statement

TWO minor girls in Walayar were found hanging in their home in 2017, in Walayar in Palakkad district of Kerala. The 13-year-old girl was found hanging in January 2017 while her 9-year-old sister was found hanging in the same house in March 2017. The circumstances and medical examination suggested sexual assault and murder rather than suicide – but the police right from the outset avoided probing the leads and gathering the evidence. Instead they initially treating the deaths as suicides.

FOR the third time since 2016, the Thunderbolts – Kerala’s anti-terror commando force – has claimed to have killed “Maoists” in an “encounter”. The “encounters” in November 2016, March 2019, and the latest one in Agali in Palakkad in October 2019 all bear the hallmarks of custodial killings, i.e fake encounters.

THE Selected IT Manager Candidates Association wrote a letter on 20 September 2019 to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and General Administration Department Chief Secretary Amir Subhani pointing out that only 36 out of the panel of 150 candidates selected by the Bihar Prashasanik Sudhar Mission Society (BPSM) in 2017 have so far been appointed, and demanding that vacancies should be created in different government departments and the remaining 114 candidates in the panel should be appointed as soon as possible.

THE Uttar Pradesh State unit of the CPI(ML) has said in a statement that the disappearance of a woman law student from the hostel of a college in Shahjahanpur run by former Central Minister of State for Home and BJP leader Swami Chinmayananda has put the Uttar Pradesh Yogi government in the dock.

CPIML Bihar State Secretary Kunal has stated in a Press Release that the Bihar police has once again acted under pressure from communal forces in Damodarpur (Muzaffarpur), where rules and laws were thrown to the winds and the police, under pressure from ex-Minister Ajit Kumar and BJP-VHP, entered homes in the middle of the night and arrested innocent Muslims, of whom an old woman has died.

CPIML condemns the arrest/detention on 17 August of Ram Puniyani, Sandeep Pandey and others who were on way to Ayodhya to attend a workshop on communal harmony. This is a blatant violation of every constitutional and legal norm by Yogi government in UP. Sandeep Pandey and Md.

CPIML General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya addressed a press conference on the eve of Independence Day on 14 August in Patna where he told to the media persons that many Bills have been passed in the last session of Parliament without much discussion. Many changes have also been made in some Acts. The Amendment to UAPA which has been passed is extremely dangerous. It seems as if the Rowlett Act era is back. The Amendment to the NIA allows any citizen to be accused of terrorism and deprived of his human rights for two years; his property can be confiscated.

CPIML Bihar State Secretary Kunal issued a statement strongly condemning the exorbitant hike in CBSE examination fees and saying that this amounts to snatching away the right to education from poor and dalit students.

New Delhi, 11 August 2019

(Released in Srinagar on 13 August 2019)

WE unequivocally condemn the decision of the Modi Government to abrogate Articles 370 and 35A, dissolve the state of Jammu and Kashmir, and bifurcate it into two Union Territories. We especially condemn the fact that this was done while holding the people and political leadership of Jammu & Kashmir captive and silenced.