ADGP, UP, Sri Brijlal's declaration of double storeying and fortifying trans Yamuna and Kaushambi thanas with watch towers, enabling police to fire at a distance, establishment of helipads in Lalapur and Sarai Akil, construction of tunnels, appointment of 203 Special Police Officers - "secret agents with secret identification numbers" like Hitler's SS (Schutz Staffel) reads like a war roll call by the Mayawati govt against the poor people of the two districts. Earlier the people feared entering the thanas to make complaints, now they will fear coming near them also.

Though the ADGP has taken notice of the problems being raised by the poor and downtrodden and has asked for them to be solved, his declaration of taking action against leaders of 'lal salaam' for 'inciting people' to take "arms" exposes the real intentions of politically targeting the peoples' organizations rather than discussing the problems at the political level and solving them. To defend themselves workers have to move with lathis which are being illegally labelled by the ADGP as weapons. They carry no arms & there has not been a single incident of violence by the workers. But like the "Khakhi" officials propped up and nurtured by the British he has treated problems of peoples' livelihood and feudal goonda torture as problems of 'law and order' being created by the people.

AIKMS leaders have made repeated representations to the IG Range, Commisioner Allahabad and other officials regarding use of illegal fire arms by goondas, illegal sand mining machines, illegal sale of ravannas in sand and gravel mining, land and mine grabbing, goonda tax by the powerful mafia and govt's failure to distribute Ganga and Jamuna Kachar land. The workers leaders have raised only constitutional demands and in an absolutely constitutional manner while BSP govt. is blatantly violating the law to repress the workers and help the mafia.

Though the Mayawati govt. talks of solving problems through mainstream participation, she has further reduced the mainstream into an anti people police exercise where people are targets of police torture and firing. This is part and parcel of the colonial mindset of Indian rulers for whom MNCs are "patriotic" and Indian people are "criminals".

AIKMS has severely condemned the BSP govt.'s repeated attempts to prevent workers and poor farmers from holding peaceful public meetings, to instigate violence through goonda type police attacks, to lodge false cases against thousands of workers and label them as a 'gang'. BSP is the harbourer of the most crude & anti people exploiter gangs in Kaushambi. MP Kapilmuni Karwaria, Girish Pasi, Balam and Pinto are embroiled in snatching poor peoples' livelihood and harassing them and Kaushambi administration is supporting their illegal and unconstitutional activities.

AIKMS submits that if the govt. does not address complaints within the framework of the constitution, laws of the land and High Court orders, workers will be forced to stop the machines themselves and do farming on the Kachar lands.

(Suresh Chandra)

General Secretary

It was a sad and horrible day in Punjab. On 3rd November, when Sikh-community was protesting against the anti-sikh violence of 1984 and against delayed, thus denied, justice for the victims of that violence, the so-called task force of SGPC, the body supposed to protect the interests of the Sikhs, had ordered its illegal killer gang to vacate the lands being cultivated by the tenant-peasants of village Khanna-Chamiara for last 60-70 years. Incensed by even the verbal protest of the peasants the killer gang opened unprovoked and indiscriminate firing on the peasants killing Sh. Kashmir Singh on the spot and seriously injured Sh. Balwinder Singh who succumbed to his injuries in the Guru Nanak hospital Amritsar. More over more than dozen peasants including some women, were mercilessly beaten by lathis and attacked with sharp-edge weapons and were admitted to various hospitals later on. The reckless and cruel goons mercilessly dragged and beat the old-aged persons and women-folk also. They also thrashed the cows and buffaloes and other domestic animals there. During this operation dispossession, a police party deployed there remained a mute spectator and it rather facilitated this attack on the peasants and their families.

As for as the land issue is concerned, there is 1100 acres of cultivable land spread over 7 villages. Almost 700 acres belong to this village Khanna-Chamiara, 148 acres to Dharmabad and 50 acres to five other villages Khanna-Chamiara’s land-chunk is the biggest of all and the entire village is a tenant-village. Even the houses of the tenants are built on the same tenanted land.

For the last several years Orissa has become a centre of many militant mass struggles against displacement and land grabbing. The heroic sacrifice of 13 tribals at Kalinganagar in 2006 and the subsequent resistance which is still going on against Tata is a pointer to this fact. Apart from Kalinganagar many spontaneous mass movements are going on in different parts of Orissa. The peasant movement against South Korean company PoSCo at Dhinkia in Jagatsinghpur Dist, movement against proposed Vedanta University (10000 acres of land) at Puri-Konark marine drive, the tribal people’s anti-mining movement at Niyamgiri (Kalahandi), peoples movement against Tata power project at Naraj (Cuttack), anti-mining movement against Aditya Birla’s proposed project at Maliparbat (Koraput) and the movement against Arcelor-Mittal’s 40000 crore steel project at Patna of Keonjhar district are some of the important mass movements going on today. These movements are not only resisting the companies in their attempt to take away the land, water, forest and mines but are also giving a serious blow to the ruling class’s pro-imperialist industrialization and development.  Recently after a review meeting with the major industries about the progress of industrialization in the state, the Industries Minister openly admitted that the work in 14 mega projects in the state including Kalinganagar, PoSCo, Mittal, Vedanta is not progressing due to local people’s continuing resistance. Though the Naveen Patnaik Govt, in the name of development and industrialization, signed 79 MOUs with different companies in the field of steel, Aluminium, power, mining, university etc it is facing stiff resistances in many places. The landslide victory of Naveen Patnaik for the third time has no meaning for these movements. Even after wining for the third time in a row, these movements for land and livelihood are giving sleepless nights to the Naveen govt.

In this background the proposed mining project of Vedanta Alumina Ltd in the Niyamagiri hills is also facing stiff resistance from the local Dongaria Kondha tribals. Though the company earlier managed to set up a refinery at Lanjigarh (Kalahandi dist) by forcefully evicting the tribal people, it is unable to carry on the mining activities.