Stop Intimidation of Human Rights Workers and Uphold Rights of Indigenous Community

Urgent Appeal Updates...

10 June 2010

It is finally confirmed that Himanshu Kumar, whose personal safety was under imminent threat, has been forced out of Chhattisgarh around mid-January, after being falsely charged of abducting a tribal woman.

“The police themselves abducted her and they’re accusing me”, Himanshu explained his situation in an interview with the Radio Netherlands Worldwide. Himanshu was arrested by police on 3 January 2010 when he was on the way to hospital, driving the tribal woman who was attacked in the Salwa Judum Campaign.

Himanshu has forced to leave the Adivasi communities in Chhattisgarh where he has been working for 17 years. He still keeps in contact with the people he used to work with but cannot return to the communities he used to serve. “It’s so painful, I feel disturbed, I feel lost. They trusted me to help them and I feel I’ve left them when they most need me,” Himanshu said. To continue his work outside the district, Himanshu goes from city to city in India, trying to plead the cause of the tribals of Dantewada.

Himanshu, along with his colleagues at Vanvasi Chetna Ashram, has been under threat since he was labeled by the Salwa Judum Campaign in 2005 as “Naxalite”, or communist group, for providing rehabilitation to people in need, regardless of their political background. To raise international attention to prevent Himanshu from the imminent arbitrary arrest, ACPP issued UA100121(1) in January 2010.

Source: Radio Netherlands Worldwide