This story is from February 22, 2018

‘3,000 Tamil Nadu woodcutters rot in Andhra Pradesh jails without trial, bail’

‘3,000 Tamil Nadu woodcutters rot in Andhra Pradesh jails without trial, bail’
Representative image
CHENNAI: Between 2,700 and 3,000 woodcutters from Tamil Nadu have been rotting in various jails in Andhra Pradesh for anywhere from a couple of months to three years — without the possibility of bail or trial anywhere in sight.
The AP police charged each of them in dozens of cases, based on suspicion backed by little evidence of involvement in red sanders smuggling, and had them remanded by courts in one case after the other to ensure that they never leave jail.

A visiting advocate said one man he met — he identified him only by the initials ATM — is charged in 75 cases. Another man, Veerambalam Rajamohan, faces 25 cases. After spending two years to contest the charges and obtain bail, when he was ready to walk out of prison, the AP police framed three new cases against him. “I will now languish here for at least six more months,” Rajamohan said.
Many have given up and are reconciled to their nightmarish, almost incredible situation because they cannot afford the legal fee of ?30,000 to obtain bail in each case.
A special task force of the Andhra Pradesh police, formed to stop the felling of red sanders in that state, picked up most of the men from within Tamil Nadu in operations that officers of the squad described as “surgical strikes”, sources said.
The stunning revelations came from teams of advocates and activists, who went under- cover to meet the prisoners in jail.
“Jails in Kadapa, Tirupati and Nellore account for more than 1,000 men from Tamil Nadu,” P Pugalenthi, advocate and president of Prisoners Rights Forum, told TOI.

‘Habeas corpus pleas led to more arrests’
P Pugalenthi said, “When we met the men for our interviews, they were trembling and fearful for their lives. It took a lot of persuasion for some of them to open up.”
“It’s a horrific tale of custodial torture,” Pugalenthi said. “Policemen hanged them upside down, plucked out their nails, gave them electric shocks and threatened them at gunpoint. Many of them have phobias and have slipped into depression.”
Another team including advocate P K Elavarasan had a similar narrative. “Many of these men are called ‘Malayalis’ a tribal community in backward parts of Vellore, Tiruvannamalai and Salem districts,” Elavarasan said. “Most don’t get any visitors, perhaps because their relatives don’t know they are in AP jails or because they can’t afford to travel.”
How the AP police trap these woodcutters is a tale in itself. The policemen nab one man first and then, at gunpoint, make him call his associates to the spot arrest them. They have used this method to trap entire chains of various individuals’ contacts, the activists said.
“Once the police have 40 to 50 men, they take them to Andhra Pradesh in batches,” Pugalenthi said. “The police, in some instances, showed individuals as having committed an offence in more than one place at the same time, or while they were in custody.
A North Beach police officer acknowledged reports of arrests on false charges in the city. In one case, he said, members of the public thrashed a team of the AP police who mistook them for robbers.
Asked if anyone tried the habeas corpus route, which should be best suited for such cases, advocate M Radhakrishnan said advocates did, after the AP police picked up six men in Chennai.
“They apprehended six people in T Nagar, Mannady and from ECR on January 22,” he said. “We sent telegrams and filed a habeas corpus petition in the high court. Though the high court issued a notice that the Kadapa district superintendent of police received on January 26, the AP police on February 3 said a local court had remanded the men in prison on February 2. The court closed the case, saying the men were in judicial custody.”
When ‘ATM’ tried to give file a habeas corpus petition, the AP police detained his son, Pugalenthi said.
“We fell at the district judge’s feet when he came for an inspection,” Rajamohan told Pugalenthi. “We narrated our ordeal to him, but he paid no heed.”
The DMK formed a team of 24 lawyers headed by V Kannadasan, former special prosecutor in the human rights court in Chennai, to assist in trials of men from Yercaud in AP jails.
“The AP courts denied bail, but offered to conduct trials. All 288 men were acquitted, but the police rearrested them one by one,” said Kannadasan. He said then chief minister J Jayalalithaa also set up ateam of lawyers but elections at the time and other crimes pushed the plight of woodcutters to the backburner.
End of Article
FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA