A 7 member team of state and national level human rights defenders, social workers and activists visited Sirmaur on the 13th and 14th September to probe into the brutal killing of activist Kedar Singh Jindan and meet the family of the deceased. The team comprised of Kuldeep Verma, Birbal (Dalit Vikas Sangathan Sirmaur), Sukhdev Vishwapremi (Centre for Mountain Dalit Rights), Advocate Sanjay, Rajkumar (National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights & National Dalit Movement for Justice), Raja Velu from Human Rights Defenders Alert and Manshi Asher from Kangra Citizens Rights Group. The team in no uncertain words condemned the heinous murder of Kedar Singh Jindan which they said was intended to target the activist who was uncovering corruption and speaking against injustice at the local level.
“On 13th September 2018 we visited Paab, the village in Shilai block from where Jindan hailed and and interacted with his family members to give our condolences and also let them know that the issue of the murder was being condemned widely”.
The team interacted with a wide variety of members of the community including the Pradhaan of the Gundaha Panchayat (of which Paab is a part) as well as members of the administration and the police. Kedar Singh Jindan aged 43 years was also a lawyer and had struggled tremendously to complete his education. He used to run an educational academy at Shilai to train young students and had over the years emerged as a voice of the ‘Koli’ (Scheduled Caste) community in the region. He used the RTI Act to uncover information related to local development issues.
In June this year, Jindan had held a press conference in Shimla where he exposed the irregularities in providing Below Poverty Line (BPL) certificates in his village and alleged that Jaiprakash (the prime accused in the murder, who also drover the Scorpio over Jindan) had illegally obtained BPL certificates to his well-to-do relatives and through which they were appointed in government jobs. Jindan obtained all of these details using the RTI Act 2005. After this expose, Jaiprakash’s relatives lost their jobs which they held against Jindan apart from his other exposes in public services in the area.
On the morning of 7th September Jindan was first brutally assaulted and then run over by a Scorpio on the road head in Bakras village by the people who Jindan had exposed. Following this the police had first nabbed two persons and then a third a few days later. A Special Investigation Team headed by ASP (Nahaan) Virender Thakur was investigating the matter and had lodged an FIR under Section 302 (Murder) as well as the section 3(2)(5) of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Prevention of Atrocities Act.
The SP and ASP whom the team met assured that the documentary and forensic evidence in the matter was strong and that the police were doing a thorough job to ensure justice for Jindan. The fact finding team however expressed concern that the police had not responded adequately to the repeated threats received by Jindan from different members of the community who were irked by his work. Last year too there was an attack on Jindan at Sattaun where he was pulled out of a bus and beaten up badly by people who were enraged that he supported an inter caste marriage in the area. “Jindan’s family informed us that he was left burried in a heap of sand and left there to die. While he survived that attack he had exposed that a large number of people from the area were out to get him and they are all complicit in the murder according to the kin of Jindan”, the team said. “This needs to be investigated”.
Our observations from various discussions make it obvious that this was not just an incident of personal vendetta (as is being claimed in some media reports) but one of planned targeting of an activist by the dominant community because he was a member of the Dalit community. “The demand to withdraw the charges under the SC-ST Act is a baseless one”, the team said. This remote area of Himachal is known for deep seated caste discriminatory practices. The fact that the dominant caste groups were defending the murder was a clear sign of the same.
“The Khumri Panchayats in the area are like Khap system here where the so called upper castes take the decisions about everything. Exclusion and discrimination is seen in all spheres here – economic, social and cultural”.
Also the manner in which the incident took place in broad day light at Bakras – on a working day where the ‘altercation’ between Jindan and the accused started close to premises of the Block Primary Education Office next to a school and was followed by him being attacked with rods and sticks and run over by an SUV on the road reveals that this was a case of a murder in full public view. The fact that there are only two people who have come forward to testify to the murder proves that there is an atmosphere of fear and intimidation in the area. The protests by Rajput Sabha in favour of the accused have also polarised the community making it difficult for people to stand up for the truth.
“We are shocked that such an incident could occur in a state like Himachal but this also shows that there is an increasing normalisation of violence in the society around us. Also shows the vulnerability of people who challenge the status quo or expose those who are powerful even at the village level”. Kedar Singh Jindan is the 73rd person to be killed for using the RTI Act for exposing corruption in the country.
The team also expressed concern that the ruling government in the state and the local MLA were silent on the matter and had not issued any statement of condemnation of this brutal killing. This is a time when we all should speak up against this kind of violence.
The team will be preparing a detailed report with recommendations which it will present to state and national level authorities and commissions.
