Last week’s encounter at Edesmeta in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district, in which eight “innocent” tribals, including three children, were gunned down by security forces, seems to have provided fodder to the Opposition Congress in the poll-bound state to attack the Raman Singh government.
“It is not a fake encounter but genocide. The incident has clearly demonstrated the state BJP government’s insensitivity towards the helpless tribals of Bastar who are sandwiched between forces and Naxals,” former chief minister and senior Congress leader Ajit Jogi told reporters here on Thursday.
Calling for an immediate halt to killing of innocent tribals in Bastar in the name of anti-Maoist operation, Mr Jogi also demanded the security personnel involved in the Edesmeta massacre be booked under murder charges.
“The ministry of home affairs (MHA) should take urgent steps to prevent recurrence of such a terrible incident,” he added.
Describing May 18 Edesmeta killings as a replay of last year’s Sarkeguda encounter, in which 17 alleged innocent tribals were killed by forces in the same district, he remarked, “It appears the security establishment has learnt no lesson from the Sarkeguda incident, leading to occurrence of Edesmeta tragedy.”
Chhattisgarh home minister Nankiram Kanwar, however, flayed the Congress for blaming security forces for the Edesmeta incident.
“The forces had merely fired in self defence when the Naxals opened fire on them. One CRPF jawan was killed when he was hit by a bullet on his forehead, fired by Naxals,” he added.