Update on the Case: On Thursday, the police have filed a criminal case against 25 named persons and 300 others not named for assembling around the police station when Saiku’s body was taken there. This is the real India where people cannot open their mouth to expose the police criminal nexus. The Adivasi people of this uranium belt have to suffer the radiation as well as police repression and fabricated cases.

Ranchi (6th August 14): As we all today commemorate the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing JMACC (Jharkhand Mines Area Coordination Committee) and JOSH (Jharkhandis Organisation for Struggling Humans) activist are burying one of their senior activist. Salku Chaki 32 father of three small children was brutally murdered on 4th August.

The situation in the Uranium Corporation of India Ltd UCIL mines of Jadugora, Turamdih, Narwarpahar, Banduranga is tense and the people are angry. They allege that the police of Sundernagar Police station are out to protect the UCIL management and the murderer. The First Information Report FIR of JOSH was not being accepted by the police and only after the people’s anger did the police register their FIR.

Salku Chaki is a displaced Adivasi and also an employee of UCIL. Nine years ago the UCIL management under a false case discharged him from his services. His body was found in the UCIL Turamdih colony. Traces of blood was found in the house of Bagrai Soren. A know criminal with a several murder cases Bagrai Soren is said to be part of the criminal mafia the management has been nurturing. UCIL has given him a quarter to live in.

For the past four to five years there has been a struggle by the displaced people of those villages for jobs. Displaced persons were given jobs with the contractors as contract labour. They were retrenched and not given the permanent promised jobs. The New Trade Union Initiative NTUI has only last year sent a Fact Finding Team whose report supports the plight of these retrenched displaced people. JOSH has been supporting the retrenched workers. In order to break the organization the Management resorted to dividing the Adivasi community by patronizing people like Bagrai Soren and attacking the others.

JOSH and JMACC demands an enquiry into the matter and arrest all the criminals involved including persons from the Management.

Released by Alis Cherwa, Spokesperson