Police Brutality

The coastal town of Honnavar, Karnataka, has recently become a battleground between the local fisherfolk and a state-backed private port company called Honnavar Ports Private Limited (HPPL). On February 24th, this year, thousands of men, women, children, and elders staged a sit-in protest over the proposed construction of a private port at Kasarkod beach, in Honnavar against HPPL. The sit-in was met with severe police brutality where over 100 protestors were arrested.

CPI(ML) has strongly condemned the brutal lathicharge carried out by the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) on displaced protesters in Bokaro Steel City in Jharkhand on 3 April. In a press statement issued by Jharkhand state office in Ranchi on 5 April, CPI(ML) has termed the assault a "bloody beginning of a new phase of state-sponsored repression" aimed at crushing anti-displacement struggles in favour of corporate interests under the Modi regime.

When the ASHA workers of Uttar Pradesh tried to submit their memorandum of demands to the CM Yogi Adityanath when he came for a program in Shahjahanpur on 9th November, the police not only stopped them from submitting the memorandum, but also brutally attacked them. One of the ASHA workers, Punam Pandey’s hand was broken, was stamped under the boot and was also attacked in the genitals. After physically assaulting the workers, the police filed cases against ASHA workers themselves.

Based on the true story of an adivasi woman desperately trying to find the whereabouts of her husband, who was falsely implicated on theft charges, taken into police custody and reported to be missing, Jai Bhim is a film that is soul stirring and exposing the ugly face of caste oppression, police brutality and opaqueness of legal institutions to common people. In the very first scene, poor families are waiting for the release of their family members from jail.