Soni Sori, a 35-year-old Adivasi school teacher in
Chhattisgarh, has been languishing in  Raipur Jail since October 2011, she
has written letters from jail asking the Nation to help her. Soni has been
tortured by the Chhattisgarh police - she complained that she was stripped
naked and given electric shocks. A recent medical examination ordered by
the Supreme Court at NRS Medical College and Hospital in Kolkatta found stones
inserted in her vagina and rectum. Medical reports submitted to the court
three days after her arrest show she sustained a head injury caused by a
“hard and blunt object”, that she had tenderness in her back, and
blackened fingers –a classic sign of electrocution.

The torture was under the supervision of Ankit Garg,
Superintendent of Police. In a terrible twist of events he was given the
President's Award on Republic Day. Soni lives in Dantewada. a Naxalite stronghold.
Last year, Soni fought with the Naxalites when they tried to stop her form
hoisting the national flag on Independence Day.  Naxalites shot her father
in the leg saying he was a police informer.  Yet the police first arrested
her husband, and now Soni, for being Naxalite supporters! Because she has
constantly fought for her people’s rights - for minimum wages. She has
taken on powerful companies that want the Adivasis’ land, and the
Chhattisgarh government that supports these companies. She has taken on the
police for their illegal activities. Her nephew Lingaram Kodopi who has been
arrested on the same charges is a trained journalist who has reported on the
abysmal human rights record of the Chhattisgarh government from the ground.
Now, fed up of being in jail, far from her three young children, Sori has gone
on hunger strike. In a letter to her lawyer she writes:  “We
Adivasis are only fated to suffer atrocities and die. We Adivasis are a
business for the government.’’

Due process has been violated in the case of Soni Sori
repeatedly. When these injuries prevented Soni from being produced before a
magistrate, an order converting her police custody into extended judicial
custody was still signed by Additional District Judge Yogita Wasik without her presence
– which is completely illegal. She was outside the court in a vehicle and
never left it. She was chained to the bed while undergoing treatment for her
injuries in a Raipur hospital, explicitly against Supreme Court orders. She was
also incarcerated in police lockup for 24 hours against Supreme Court orders
when taken to Kolkata for a medical re-examination. Soni has now testified on
video that she has been threatened by the police to not reveal her custodial
torture for fear that they will arrest her brother, the sole caretaker of her
children.

The undersigned groups from Karnataka State strongly
condemn the custodial sexual assault and torture of Soni Sori, an Adivasi
school teacher from the Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh.