Chhattisgarh cops hounding innocent?

NEW DELHI: Lingaram Kodopi's biggest fear is that the institute he goes to for a journalism course might ask him to leave after the claim by the Chhattisgarh police that he is the mastermind behind the attack on a Congress leader in Dantewada.
Lingaram is fearing arrest by Chhattisgarh police and says he would prefer death than detention. This comes even as historian Ramchandra Guha has written to home minister P Chidambaram protesting against the manner in which the Chhattisgarh police has tried to malign anthropologist Nandini Sundar by alleging that Lingaram was in touch with her.The state police said he was also in touch with writer Arundhati Roy and activist Medha Patkar.
Guha has sought an immediate apology from the Chhattisgarh government. "For some time now, they have been insinuating that anyone who does not agree 100% with their policies must be a Naxalite sympathizer. For example, when I criticized the excesses of the Salwa Judum, the state's DGP, Vishwa Ranjan, accused me in print of being a closet Maoist. But with this slander against Nandini Sundar, who is the country's leading anthropologist, they have reached a new low. Such behaviour is not just slanderous and defamatory, but also deeply counter-productive. I trust necessary steps will be taken to put an end to it," he told home minister.
Nandini's lawyer Nitya Ramakrishnan also said, "The Chhattisgarh police's aim to malign Nandini is totally unacceptable." Nandini has already threatened to take action.
Speaking to TOI, Lingaram said he has nothing to do with Maoists. On the contrary, he said, he has been threatened by Maoists also. Narrating his woes ever since he was picked up by police last September and kept in jail till early November, Lingaram alleged that superintendent of police Amresh Mishra who kept saying he was involved with Maoists beat him up. The police, he also alleged, kept forcing him to sign up as SPO and spill the beans. He was given food once a day and kept in subhuman conditions.
"The police said I am involved with Chhatradhar Mahato and Kobad Gandhy," Lingaram said. One SPO took pity on Lingaram and lent him his phone that helped speak to his brother. "I was picked up on the pretext of questioning for two hours and kept in custody for months," he alleged.