FIFTY-YEAR-old Bingka Hindu is languishing in the District Jail, Koraput since January 6, 2012 after alleged merciless beating by the policemen who also looted his belonging. The man belonging to the Kui family lives at Uppar Dekapadu village of Narayanpatna block.

While the human rights activists have condemned the alleged police brutality, Bingka’s family say that he is innocent and has never been involved in any criminal or anti-social activity. They allege that policemen beat him mercilessly after he was leaving for home after selling his maize and vegetable produce at Narayanpatna market. A GR Case No. 930/12 has been registered at Narayanpatna Police Station against Bingka. The family pleaded before the district administration, asking for the details of the case, he has been arrested and booked for.

The Times of India recently reported about the fake police station attack in which two local tribals were shot two years before. “Court scrutiny of the incident now reveals the entire episode was scripted and played by police, falsely implicating innocent people in the name of anti-Maoist operations,” the paper said. After the violence, the arrest spree continued, ostensibly to justify the authorities' claim that the CMAS activists, led by its leader Nachika Linga, attacked the police station to ransack it and loot arms. Police had then insisted that its action was retaliatory in nature.

Police had often been accused of high-handedness in Narayanpatna and the indiscriminate arrests is one of the allegations it has been facing from human rights groups. In some of the gravest allegations, the security forces have been accused of issuing threats to the adivasis to desist from harvesting their crops.