Human rights organisation People’s Union for Civil Liberties has demanded the release of Adivasi rights activist Suneeta Pottam, who was arrested by the police in Chhattisgarh’s Raipur on June 3.

Pottam, who is 26 years old, had protested a spate of extra judicial killings of villagers in Bijapur in 2016.

She had gathered evidence to show that the victims were not Naxalites but ordinary villagers who had been shot by security forces. She then filed a petition with the evidence in the Chhattisgarh High Court. The case was later transferred to the Supreme Court and tagged with another case, Nandini Sundar and Ors v State of Chhattisgarh, better known as the Salwa Judum case, where it is still pending.

At around 8.30 am on June 3, a team of the Bijapur district police allegedly stormed Pottam’s residence at a women’s collective in Raipur. She was allegedly manhandled while being taken into custody.

Pottam later found out that she had been arrested in connection with five cases. She is being held in a prison in Jagdalpur.

Pottam is an executive committee member with the People’s Union for Civil Liberties and is a founding member of the Moolwasi Bachao Manch, an Adivasi youth group that documents human rights violations in the state.

“It is to be noted that as per the press release of the Chhattisgarh Police, Suneeta has 12 pending permanent arrest warrants against her and calls her absconding Naxalite,” the People’s Union for Civil Liberties said in a statement. “In those cases, police says, she is charged ‘in various police stations of Bijapur district in cases of murder, attempt to murder, arson, robbery, provocative speech, inciting the public, causing damage to government property’, which were claimed to be ‘Maoist incidents’.”

“The falsity of all the allegations become clear from the fact that Suneeta has been appearing in public and has appeared in public as recently as March 2024,” the statement continued.

“The picking up of Suneeta Pottam is part of a series of rampant illegal arrests of Adivasi activists and human rights defenders in the last months in Chhattisgarh, including the recent arrest of Adivasi leader Sarju Tekam,” the rights group said.

Tekam, convenor of the Bastar Jan Sangharsh Samanvay Samiti, was arrested on April 2 after the police raided his home and claimed to have seized Naxalite literature, banners and weapons, reported Northeast Now.

Tekam’s family members have alleged that the literature, associated with the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist), and weapons were planted in his residence by security forces, according to the human rights organisation Front Line Defenders.

Tekam has been arrested under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.

The People’s Union for Civil Liberties on Saturday demanded the release of Pottam, Tekam and at least nine other Adivasi activists who are associated with the Moolwasi Bachao Manch.

At a press conference on Saturday, the People’s Union for Civil Liberties also alleged that security forces in Bastar have killed over 150 people this year in counter insurgency operations.

“While the state agencies claim that all those killed in these incidents are armed Maoists who have been killed during active hostilities, independent probe by state units of PUCL, journalists and other independent individuals have clearly established that many of the deceased were ordinary villagers, engaged in routine rural activities such as collection of tendu leaves, or mahua flowers in the forests,” the group said in a statement. “Some of them have been definitively identified as young people, minors.”

Also read: How two teenaged girls, Suneeta Pottam and Munni Pottam, are leading a fight for justice in Chhattisgarh