CPIML Liberation

The CPI(ML) Liberation strongly condemns the three-year imprisonment and fine imposed by a Pilibhit court on party leader Afroz Alam, member of the Uttar Pradesh State Standing Committee and UP State Convenor of the Insaf Manch, along with seven other party activists and poor villagers, in a 2011 case arising from their struggle against the illegal occupation of Gram Sabha land. During the course of the case, the comrades were badly beaten and subjected to brutal torture, including the use of rollers on their thighs. The case is a clear instance of the state machinery being used to shield powerful land-grabbers and target those fighting for the rights of the rural poor. Instead of acting against the influential encroachers, the police implicated the protesting villagers and CPI(ML) activists and subsequently invoked the Gangsters Act against them. Though the court has granted interim bail to all eight comrades, the conviction comes against the backdrop of increasingly vindictive targeting and repression of workers' and farmers' movements in Uttar Pradesh under the Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government. Just yesterday, the Allahabad High Court quashed the NSA detention of Aakriti Chaudhary, a Delhi University graduate who had spent more than five months in preventive detention for supporting workers fighting for wage increases. The Court termed the case “concocted” and awarded ₹5 lakh in compensation. Several workers and activists continue to remain incarcerated, including under the draconian NSA. The Yogi regime has also recently intensified its witch-hunt against activists of Left parties and the farmers' movement, including through directions for the preparation of large-scale and unlawful dossiers containing personal and family information of activists. These incidents expose the vindictive and anti-people character of the Yogi-BJP regime and its systematic misuse of state power to suppress workers', farmers' and people's democratic struggles. This large-scale criminalisation of dissent and democratic voices, the imposition of draconian laws, and the targeting of activists fighting for people's rights must be firmly resisted. — Central Committee, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation