Soni Sori

Soni Sori (born c. 1975^[2]) is an Adivasi school teacher in Jabeli village of Dantewada, Chhattisgarh, India and a suspected Maoist.^[3] She was arrested by the Delhi Police's Crime Branch for Chhattisgarh Police in 2011, while she was on run,^[4] for acting as a conduit for extortion money being paid by Essar Group to the Naxalites.^[5][6] During her imprisonment, she alleged that she was tortured and sexually assaulted by Chhattisgarh state police.^[7] By April 2013, the Indian Courts had acquitted her in six of the eight cases filed against her due to lack of evidence.^[8][9]

Background and family

Sori's father, Mundra Ram, is a former Indian National Congress sarpanch of their home village of Bade Bedma. Her family has large landholdings in the region.^[3] Her father also acted as an informant for the state police.^[3] He was shot in the leg by Naxalite rebels in June 2011.^[10]

Sori's mother had fallen ill after Sori's arrest and died in 2012.^[2][11] Sori has three children.^[2] As of March 2012, her husband Anil Futane, a driver, had been detained for one year on charges of collaboration with the Maoist rebels.^[7] Her estranged brother Sukhdev and his wife too have held positions in the panchayat representing the Indian National Congress. Two of her uncles were MLAs, and Sori's cousin Amrita Sori is DSP in Jagdalpur (Bastar).^[3] The Indian Express reported that her husband felt betrayed as she escaped the arrest while he got arrested.^[3]

Arrest

In July 2010, warrants were first issued against Soni, along with her husband and nephew, for an attack on a local Indian National Congress leader, Avdesh Gautam. In the attack, Gautam escaped harm, but his son was injured.^[12] The Indian Express wrote that "evidence suggests both Sori and Futane were not involved in the attack", but that SRP Kalluri used the charges to pressure them to become informers.^[3] Gautam stated that Soni Sori was not arrested as she had promised "a major haul of Maoists".^[3]

On 9 September 2011, Chhattisgarh Police stated that they had prevented an exchange of extortion money from the Essar Group to the Maoist group CPI (Maoist). Earlier, WikiLeaks had also revealed that the Essar Group pays a significant amount of protection money to Maoists to safeguard its operations in the state.^[13] The cable stated that a senior representative from Essar, a major industrial company with large mining and steel-related facilities in Chhattisgarh, told a representative of the Congenoff (Consul General Office) that the company pays the Maoists "a significant amount" not to harm or interfere with their operations.^[14] The police stated the steel company was paying the Maoists to buy peace and safeguard its iron ore slurry pipeline from Dantewada.^[2] According to the police, along with her nephew Lingaram Kodopi, Sori was slated to collect 1.5 million from Essar contractor B K Lala at Palnar weekly market in Dantewada on 9 September. The police stated they arrested Lala and Kodopi from the bazaar, but due to chaos in the market, Sori gave them the slip.^[5]

On 10 September, Ankit Garg, SP, Dantewada announced the arrests of Essar contractor B K Lala and Maoist conduit Lingaram Kodapi (Sori's nephew). The police, Garg said, arrested them on 9 September when Lala was handing over 1.5 million to Kodapi at Palnar market, while Sori and Maoist commanders Vinod and Bhadru "escaped" from the spot. Essar GM DVCS Verma was also arrested. Soni Sori escaped to Delhi.^[3]

Soni Sori was arrested by Delhi Police on 4 October 2011. Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime Branch), Delhi, Ashok Chand said that they had arrested her on the request of the Chhattisgarh Police.^[5][15] After her arrest, on the same day, she was produced before Saket (Delhi) Sessions Court before a Duty Magistrate and was sent to judicial custody. She was booked under various sections including extortion, criminal conspiracy and unlawful activities.^[5][12] The three accused parties – Soni, Communist Party of India (Maoist) and Essar Group – denied the charges.^[15]

On 9 July 2013, Chhattisgarh High Court rejected her bail application along with another accused Lingaram Kodopi after hearing their counsels. The court observed that allegations against them were of serious nature.^[4] On 11 November 2013, she was granted an interim bail during the pendency of her bail application as Chhattisgarh Police could not aid the Supreme Court of India with the records at that time. Her bail applications would be heard on merits on 3 December 2013. She has been ordered not to stay in Chhattisgarh and weekly report to Police in Delhi.^[16]

Alleged incidents of torture

Despite Soni Sori's statement to a court that she feared for her safety, she was transferred to the custody of Chhattisgarh state police in Dantewada.^[17] She was then interrogated on 8 and 9 October, during which time she alleges that she was stripped naked and tortured with electric shocks^[7] at the orders of then-district police superintendent Ankit Garg.^[17] She allegedly wrote to her lawyer that she had been forced to stand naked while "(Superintendent of Police) Ankit Garg was watching me, sitting on his chair... While looking at my body, he abused me in filthy language and humiliated me."^[18] She alleged that he then sent three men into the room to sexually assault her.^[18] Garg "categorically denied" Sori's allegations against him.^[19]

Sori was subsequently hospitalized at Kolkata Medical College Hospital, where doctors removed stones that had been inserted into her vagina and rectum.^[20] A review by the Indian Express found the medical reports on the issue to be inconsistent, noting that government doctors had not previously noted the stones in their report after an X-ray and that the Kolkata doctors had not noted any tearing or discharge as might be expected.^[3]

On 8 January 2013, Supreme Court of India allowed Sori's request for shifting from the Raipur Central Jail to the Jagdalpur Jail. Court recorded that she had been shifted to the Raipur Central Jail on her own request. Sori had complained of sexual harassment from jail officials at the Raipur prison. The order was passed after lawyers who appeared for Chhattisgarh government were not opposed to the plea.^[21][22]

As of 8 February 2012, she and her nephew, Lingaram Kodopi, remain detained with the inquiries continuing.^[23] Her case has been repeatedly listed for the Supreme Court but has been postponed every time.^[24]

Reactions

Government

The Chhattisgarh government submitted to the Supreme Court of India that the entire allegation was being orchestrated by certain vested interests to malign the Chhattisgarh Police.^[21] The police also denied the charges of torture. ADG (Naxal) Ramnivas said that she had slipped in the bathroom and had injured herself. The police said, "in her statement to doctors in Dantewada hospital in the presence of the police, she confirmed that she slipped in the bathroom and sustained head and back injuries".^[25]

Gautam, the Indian National Congress leader whose house was attacked in July 2010, said that he felt sorry for her as human rights activists were using her and this had made the case more complex.^[3]

Activists

On 11 October 2011, Sori began a hunger strike to protest her alleged framing in the payoff case.^[2] On 13 October, the National Human Rights Commission announced that it would investigate Sori's allegations of torture.^[2] In January 2012, Human Rights Watch called on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to launch an independent probe, criticizing the failure of the Chhattisgarh government to begin an investigation and the lack of inquiries by the national government.^[18] Amnesty International stated that it considered Sori a prisoner of conscience, imprisoned for her critique of human rights violations by both Maoist rebels and Indian state forces. On International Women's Day 2012 (8 March), it launched a campaign calling for her unconditional release and an investigation into her torture allegations.^[7]

A group of 250 activists and intellectuals wrote to Prime Minister Singh on 30 April expressing concern over Sori's "rapidly deteriorating" condition in prison and demanding that she receive immediate medical attention. Signatories included Aruna Roy, Jean Dreze, Harsh Mander, Prashant Bhushan, Meena Kandasamy, Arundhati Roy, Noam Chomsky, and Anand Patwardhan.^[24][26] After being refused by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences the previous day, Sori was later admitted to the hospital on 10 May for treatment. She was found to be suffering from severe blisters in her genital area, and a government inquiry was instituted to learn why the hospital had initially refused her.^[11]

Press

Rahul Pandita of OPEN wrote that "there is good reason to believe that the stories in circulation about her are a complex web of lies and falsehood systematically spread over the past two years by the state machinery", and compared the case to George Orwell's novel 1984.^[12] The Indian Express wrote of the case that "Sori's story over the past two years is that of a woman who was exploited both by the police and the Maoists—some would say she let them use her—and now by her activist friends."^[3]

References