Appeal to scrap Tada

PATNA: As many as 500 eminent personalities including film makers, journalists and social activists have urged the union home minister as well as Bihar chief minister to withdraw the cases filed under Tada and ensure the release of the 14 persons sentenced to life imprisonment in the Bhadasi case of Arwal district, as well as four Dalits sentenced to death under Tada in the Bara case.
In a signed appeal, they said that it is with great concern that we note that nine years after Tada was allowed to lapse, state is still using it to crush political dissent and democratic protest. "It is shocking that this draconian law is still in use while most political parties have agreed that its successor, Pota should be repealed", the memorandum said.
Prominent signatories include Arundhati Roy, Yogendra Yadav, Achin Vanayak, Sandeep Pandey, Uma Chakravorty, Tripa Wahi, Sumit Chakravorty, Jean Dreze, Kamal Mitra Chenoy, Anand Patwardhan, Indira Jaisingh, Praful Bidwai, Gautam Navlakha, Rajender Sachar, Anil Sadgopal and Nandita Hakshar.
In the case of Bhadasi village of Arwal police station, 14 CPI-ML activists including Shah Chand, Jagdish Yadav, Arun Bharati, who have struggled against "police repression" and "feudal terror of landlords" were charged and punished under Tada in the trial conducted in August 2003 by the sessions court of Jehanabad.
"Tada has not been applied against guilty police official or feudal oppressor. In the only one case in which Tada was invoked against a feudal oppressor Ramadhar Singh alias Diamond, founder of the Savarn Liberation Front (main accused in Sawanbigha carnage where six Dalits were killed) it was withdrawn soon after. On the other hand as many as 18 Tada case have been slapped on CPI-ML activists in the district", the memorandum said.
The vice-president of the PUCL, Uttar Pradesh unit, Chittaranjan Prasad Singh on Tuesday reached Patna to submit a memorandum signed by 500 people including a separate letter of Kuldip Nayar to the chief minister.
"I am pained that chief minister as well as railway minister could not give me an audience despite my prior appointment with him on Tuesday evening at around 4.30 pm", Singh told TOI on Tuesday evening. Singh had submitted a memorandum and Nayar''s letter to CM''s aid.
"I will wait for another fortnight for withdrawal of Pota. if the state government fails to withdraw it I will appeal to the Supreme Court for justice", he said.
Noted journalist Nayar in a separate letter to CM said, "You know about the police excesses against people in your state (read Bihar) who are trying to resist the tyranny of the upper caste and the landlords".
"We in Delhi held a meeting a few days ago to voice our protest against what was being done in the name of security and law and order. Kindly look into the matter and help us to get redress immediately", Nayar said in a letter to Bihar CM.