Since July this year, the Telangana Police have been increasingly persecuting Adivasi residents in the state’s northern districts of Adilabad and Kumuram Bheem Asifabad. The police actions rose after Vishnu Warrier, the superintendent of police at Adilabad, released a list on 29 August of people accused of being “Maoist sympathisers.” Many of those named in the list are students and human-rights activists from Adivasi communities. Madvi Ramesh, a school teacher who has taken active part in various agitations for Adivasi rights, was named in the list. “The police has been unnecessarily framing Adivasi students,” Ramesh said. “For people like me who are in government job, we can manage. But what would the students do?”
Kumuram Bheem Asifabad was carved out of a larger Asifabad district in 2016. In recent months, students and activists from the two northern districts faced increase police intimidation, including charges under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. In fact, the incidents are not restricted to these two districts—Mulugu and Bhadradi Kothagudem, two eastern districts of the state, have also seen a rise in police hostilities against Adivasi locals. Simultaneously, while the police reported over ten encounter killings from multiple incidents of “exchange of fire” in the past two months, not a single person from the Telangana Police was injured, according to police press releases and news reports. The cases of harassment and intimidation of Adivasi activists, teachers, lawyers, and students in Adilabad appears to be part of the attempt by the Telangana government to shun the voices fighting for Adivasi rights.
The persecution began in July after the Telangana Police intensified combing operations in various parts of the state. On 17 July, Telangana’s director general of police, M Mahender Reddy, held a press conference in Kumuram Bheem Asifabad and said five members of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) were “spreading tension in Adivasi villages which are known for peace and tranquillity.” Reddy claimed that the group was led by Mailarepu Adellu, more commonly known as Bhaskar, who is a member of the Maoists’ Telangana state committee. A Telangana Today report noted that the five-member Maoist team’s presence in Adilabad had prompted the police to “deploy 60 police teams, including 25 special squads, to carry out intense combing operations in the forests to track down the ultras.”
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