Raipur: “Sarv Adivasi Samaj”, an umbrella body of different tribal groups in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar, has decided to move the high court challenging the verdict on the 2013 Jhiram Ghati massacre delivered by the special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court, which sentenced ten convicts to death.
The body convened a meeting of the various tribal groups in Bastar at Jagdalpur, headquarters of Bastar, on Sunday, where it has been decided to move the Chhattisgarh high court to challenge the verdict.
Kin of the convicts also attended the meeting, an office bearer of the Sarv Adivasi Samaj said.
The meeting held that people not linked directly to the Jhiram Ghati Naxal attack were charge-sheeted and subsequently convicted in the incident, whereas the key conspirators and big Maoists involved in the incident have surrendered and are roaming free.
It has been decided in the meeting that the body will move across Bastar, comprising seven districts, and collect a nominal fund of Rs.20 from each family to fight the case for the convicts, according to the president of the ‘Sarv Adivasi Samaj’, Prakash Thakur.
A special NIA court in Jagdalpur earlier in the month pronounced the verdict in the Jhiram Ghati incident and convicted all ten accused.
The court later declared a quantum of punishment for the convicts by sentencing them to death.
Around 100 armed Maoists ambushed the convoy of Congress leaders at Jhiram Ghati under Darbha division in Bastar district on May 25, 2013, when they were returning after attending the party’s Parivartan rally in Sukma in south Bastar.
They massacred 27 people, including 26 Congress leaders and workers, wiping off the almost entire Chhattisgarh Congress leadership.
Prominent among the slain Congress leaders included Chhattisgarh Pradesh Congress Committee president Nand Kumar Patel and his son Dinesh, former minister Mahendra Karma, the founder of the anti-Naxal civil vigilante force Salwa Judum, and former Union minister Vidya Charan Shukla.
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