The Forest Department has given permission to chop down nearly 17,000 trees in Delhi for the redevelopment of Central Government accommodations. While the government is talking euphemistically about the destruction, the numbers are staggering. 11,000 out of 13,128 trees in Sarojini Nagar will be felled. 1,465 out of 1,513 in Nauroji Nagar. 3033 out of 3906 in Netaji Nagar. 108 out of 349 in Thyagraj Nagar. 447 out of 562 in Mohammadpur and all 520 trees in Kasturba Nagar. The felling of 1,713 trees was approved earlier for the integrated complex at Pragati Nagar, also implemented by NBCC, which is implementing these projects.
For a city fighting a losing struggle with pollution, desertification, a dropping water table and climate extremes, the cutting of most of the trees in an area is nothing short of catastrophic. Trees improve the quality of air, strengthen the structure of the land, help retain moisture in air and soil, support biodiversity - in short, trees do a lot of things that support human needs. At a time when largescale reforestation is seen as a viable longterm solution to combat climate change, and a government report warns of 21 Indian cities to run out of groundwater within 2 years, a government planning to decimate thousands of trees in a city already struggling with environmental degradation raises serious questions about the motivations of decisionmakers.
Even more ironic is that the destruction is being wreaked in the name of constructing housing at a time when the real estate market is in a massive slump and the unsold inventory is vast. It is a game of money. It will be cheaper for the government to construct bulk housing. That kickbacks in large projects grease the machinery everywhere is an open secret. The very survival of the city being ignored toward this end does not bode well.
The government is making placatory noises about saplings being planted and trees being relocated, with claims designed to fool the gullible with numbers. "10 saplings planted for every tree cut" etc. The fact of the matter is that it is not so simple. The loss isn't just of a number of trees, though the number itself is significant. The loss, in environmental terms is one of ecology. The biodiversity of well established trees growing in an area, with roots deep into the ground that enable them to survive Delhi's increasing desertification, the undergrowth of shrubbery, symbiotic and parasitic life forms existing in a stable balance, birds and animals finding shelter in the canopy, surviving the harsh summers in its protection, the cooling effect of their shade for the region, the binding of carbon dioxide and release of oxygen supporting a densely populated urban sprawl.... 10 saplings may seem like well compensated in numbers, but decades will pass before those saplings can approach the functions that established tree cover killed today will. In the meanwhile, life forms depending on those trees for survival will perish.
Reforestation is also not a simple game. Delhi's water table is very low. for saplings to survive till the point their roots can naturally reach and draw water will take years of careful watering and nurturing, which will prevent the establishment of forest and development of the biodiversity. And at the end of all this, it still cannot be guaranteed that the trees will survive, as reforestation shows best results in fertile soil with a good moisture content, and we all know the situation of Delhi on that front. Moving mature trees is an even more expensive and complicated process. Mature trees have extensive root systems, and suffer considerable damage to roots in the process, with only a section of the rootball (size is calculated based on tree size) being transplanted to the new location. The trees need careful nurturing after being transplanted in order to survive.
In a country where government policies make it hard for humans to survive, where an arbitrary action like demonetisation devastated the economic survival of many, where the imposition of Aadhaar forces people to get and update theirs or lose out on necessities, where millions of humans "transplanted" by government lack proper relocation, it is very difficult to imagine the government taking the effort it would require, to even deliver on their inadequate claims of compensatory action. Nor do the assurances appear to be backed by actual hard information on where this mythical extensive plantation of thousands of trees will happen. On what land.
Cutting down trees on this scale is irreversible damage to the city.
Today, largescale reforestation is being considered seriously by governments as an essential step toward combating climate change. Brazil kicked off the world's largest reforestation project to date last year with an ambitious plan to plant 73 million trees to combat the deforestation of the Amazon. Perhaps the Indian government should at least plant those saplings first and let them grow to maturity before touching established trees.
Imagine a democratic protest where a million farmers, labourers and others march to the capital and compel discussion of the exploding crisis of the countryside in a special three-week session of Parliament
Farmer long march in Mumbai. Night at somaiya ground. Photo: People's Archive of Rural India
India’s agrarian crisis has gone beyond the agrarian.
It’s a crisis of society. Maybe even a civilizational crisis, with perhaps the largest body of small farmers and labourers on earth fighting to save their livelihoods. The agrarian crisis is no longer just a measure of loss of land. Nor only a measure of loss of human life, jobs or productivity. It is a measure of our own loss of humanity. Of the shrinking boundaries of our humaneness. That we have sat by and watched the deepening misery of the dispossessed, including the death by suicide of well over 300,000 farmers these past 20 years. While some – ‘leading economists’ – have mocked the enormous suffering around us, even denying the existence of a crisis.
The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) has not published data on farmers’ suicides for two years now. For some years before that, fraudulent data logged in by major states severely distorted the agency’s estimates. For instance, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal and many others claimed ‘zero suicides’ by farmers in their states. In 2014, 12 states and 6 Union Territories claimed ‘zero suicides’ among their farmers. The 2014 and 2015 NCRB reports saw huge, shameless fiddles in the methodology – aimed at bringing down the numbers.
And yet they keep rising.
Meanwhile, protests by farmers and labourers are on the rise. Farmers have been shot dead – as in Madhya Pradesh. Derided or cheated in agreements, as in Maharashtra. And devastated by demonetisation, as in just about everywhere. Anger and pain are mounting in the countryside. And not just among farmers but amongst labourers who find the MNREGA being dismantled by design. Amongst fisherfolk, forest communities, artisans, exploited anganwadi workers. Amongst those who send their children to government schools, only to find the state itself killing its own schools. Also, small government employees and transport and public sector workers whose jobs are on the anvil.
Vishwanath Khule of Vidarbha’s Akola district, whose son Vishal consumed weedicide. Farmer suicides are mounting, but governments are falsifying numbers. Photo: Jaideep Hardikar / People's Archive of Rural India
And the crisis of the rural is no longer confined to the rural. Studies suggest an absolute decline in employment in the country between 2013-14 and 2015-16.
The 2011 Census signalled perhaps the greatest distress-driven migrations we’ve seen in independent India. And millions of poor fleeing the collapse of their livelihoods have moved out to other villages, rural towns, urban agglomerations, big cities – in search of jobs that are not there. Census 2011 logs nearly 15 million fewer farmers (‘main cultivators’) than there were in 1991. And you now find many once-proud food-producers working as domestic servants. The poor are now up for exploitation by both urban and rural elites.
The government tries its best not to listen. It’s the same with the news media.
When the media do skim over the issues, they mostly reduce them to demands for a ‘loan waiver.’ In recent days, they’ve recognised the minimum support price (MSP) demand of farmers – the Cost of Production (CoP2) + 50 per cent. But the media don’t challenge the government’s claims of already having implemented this demand. Nor do they mention that the National Commission on Farmers (NCF; popularly known as the Swaminathan Commission) flagged a bunch of other, equally serious issues. Some of the NCF’s reports have remained in Parliament 12 years without discussion. Also the media, while denouncing loan waiver appeals, won’t mention that corporates and businessmen account for the bulk of the non-performing assets drowning the banks.
Perhaps the time has come for a very large, democratic protest, alongside a demand for Parliament to hold a three-week or 21-day special session dedicated entirely to the crisis and related issues. A joint session of both houses.
We can’t resolve the agrarian crisis if we do not engage with the rights and problems of women farmers PHOTO • BINAIFER BHARUCHA / People's Archive of Rural India
On what principles would that session be based? The Indian Constitution. Specifically, the most important of its Directive Principles of State Policy. That chapter speaks of a need to “minimise the inequalities in income” and “endeavour to eliminate inequalities in status, facilities, opportunities….” The principles call for “a social order in which justice, social, economic and political, shall inform all the institutions of the national life.”
The right to work, to education, to social security. The raising of the level of nutrition and of public health. The right to a better standard of living. Equal pay for equal work for men and women. Just and humane conditions of work. These are amongst the main principles. The Supreme Court has more than once said the Directive Principles are as important as our Fundamental Rights.
An agenda for the special session? Some suggestions that others concerned by the situation can amend or add to:
3 days: Discussion of the Swaminathan Commission report – 12 years overdue.
It submitted five reports between December 2004 and October 2006 that cover a multitude of vital issues and not just MSP. Those include, to name a few: productivity, profitability, sustainability; technology and technology fatigue; dryland farming, price shocks and stabilisation – and much more. We also need to halt the privatisation of agricultural research and technology. And deal with impending ecological disaster.
3 days: People’s testimonies.
Let victims of the crisis speak from the floor of Parliament’s central hall and tell the nation what the crisis is about, what it has done to them and countless millions of others. And it’s not just about farming. But how surging privatisation of health and education has devastated the rural poor, indeed all the poor. Health expenditure is either the fastest or second fastest growing component of rural family debt.
3 days: Credit crisis.
The unrelenting rise of indebtedness. This has been a huge driving factor in the suicide deaths of countless thousands of farmers, apart from devastating millions of others. Often it has meant loss of much or all of their land. Policies on institutional credit paved the way for the return of the moneylender.
3 days: The country’s mega water crisis.
It’s much greater than a drought. This government seems determined to push through privatisation of water in the name of ‘rational pricing’. We need the right to drinking water established as a fundamental human right – and the banning of privatisation of this life-giving resource in any sector. Ensuring social control and equal access, particularly to the landless.
3 days: The rights of women farmers.
The agrarian crisis cannot be resolved without engaging with the rights – including those of ownership – and problems of those who do the most work in the fields and farms. While in the Rajya Sabha, Prof. Swaminathan introduced the Women Farmers’ Entitlements Bill, 2011 (lapsed in 2013) that could still provide a starting point for this debate.
3 days: The rights of landless labourers, both women and men.
With mounting distress migrations in many directions, this crisis is no longer just rural. Where it is, any public investment made in agriculture has to factor in their needs, their rights, their perspective.
3 days: Debate on agriculture.
What kind of farming do we want 20 years from now? One driven by corporate profit? Or by communities and families for whom it is the basis of their existence? There are also other forms of ownership and control in agriculture we need to press for – like the vigorous sangha krishi (group farming) efforts of Kerala’s Kudumbashree movement. And we have to revive the unfinished agenda of land reform. For all of the above debates to be truly meaningful – and this is very important – every one of them must focus, too, on the rights of Adivasi and Dalit farmers and labourers.
While no political party would openly oppose such a session, who will ensure it actually happens? The dispossessed themselves.
The morcha of farmers from Nashik to Mumbai in March has to go national – not just of farmers and labourers, but also others devastated by the crisis PHOTO • SHRIRANG SWARGE / People's Archive of Rural India
In March this year, 40,000 peasants and labourers marched for a week from Nashik to Mumbai making some of these very demands. An arrogant government in Mumbai dismissed the marchers as ‘urban Maoists’ with whom it would not talk. But caved in within hours of the multitude reaching Mumbai to encircle the state legislative assembly. That was the rural poor sorting out their government.
The highly disciplined marchers struck a rare chord in Mumbai. Not just the urban working class, but also the middle classes, even some from the upper middle classes, stepped out in sympathy.
We need to do this at the national level – scaled up 25 times over. A Long March of the Dispossessed – not just of farmers and labourers, but also others devastated by the crisis. And importantly, those not affected by it – but moved by the misery of fellow human beings. Those standing for justice and democracy. A march starting from everywhere in the country, converging on the capital. No Red Fort rallies, nor skulls at Jantar Mantar. That march should encircle Parliament – compel it to hear, listen and act. Yes, they would Occupy Delhi.
It might take many months to get off the ground, a gargantuan logistical challenge. One that has to be met by the largest and widest coalition possible of farm, labour and other organisations. It will face great hostility from the rulers – and their media – who would seek to undermine it at every stage.
It can be done. Do not underestimate the poor – it is they, not the chattering classes, who keep democracy alive.
It would be one of the highest forms of democratic protest – a million human beings or more showing up to ensure their representatives perform. As a Bhagat Singh, if alive, might have said of them: they could make the deaf hear, the blind see and the dumb speak.
This is a letter by Dr. Kafeel Khan, whose sole "crime" was trying to prevent deaths from deprivation of oxygen. He was arrested and has now spent 8 months in jail without bail for little reason more than the state needing a scapegoat for its own failures.
8MS, IN JAIL WITHOUT BAIL
AM I REALLY GUILTY?
I cherished each moment. Every scene is still alive like it is happening right now in front of my eyes, even after 8 months of unbearable torture, humiliation behind the bars. Sometime I asked myself am I really guilty? And the answer pop out from the core of my heart
No, no - A Big NO.
The moment I got that WhatsApp message on that 10th August 17 fateful night, I did everything a doctor, a father, a responsible CITIZEN OF INDIA would/should do. I tried to save each and every life who was in danger due to sudden stoppage of liquid oxygen. I did my level best to save those innocent kids who were dying because of lack of oxygen.
I frantically called everyone, I begged, I talked, I ran, I drove, I ordered, I yelled, I screamed, I consoled, I counselled, I spent, I borrowed, I cried I did all what is humanly possible.
I called my Head of the Department, my colleagues, Principal BRD, Acting Principal BRD, DM GKP, AD Health GKP, CMS/SIC GKP, CMS/SIC BRD MC informed them about the grave situation arising due to sudden stoppage of liquid oxygen and how kids life are in danger due to lack of oxygen supply. [I have all the call records]
I begged gas suppliers MODI GAS, BALA JI, Imperial GAS, Mayur Gas Agency, All the hospitals around BRD medical college afterr arranging their contact No - for jumbo cylinders to save hundreds of life of innocent kids.
I paid them cash and assured them will pay rest on delivery. [We arranged 250 cylinders/day until liquid oxygen tank arrived. One jumbo cylinder cost 216/- Rs]
I ran from one Qubical to another, from ward 100 to ward 12 to Emergency Ward. From point of oxygen supply to point of delivery to make sure uninterrupted oxygen delivery.
I drove to get cylinder from nearby Hospitals in my car. When I realized that was not sufficient I drove to SSB and met its DIG and explained him the unprecedented situation. Their response was very quick and supporting. They arranged big truck and group of soldiers to carry supply cylinders from BRD to Gas Agency, filled it, brought to BRD and ran again to refill. They worked for continuous 48 hours.
Their spirit boost ours. I salute SSB and very thankful for their help.
JAI HIND
I spoke to my junior/senior doctors, I ordered my staff. Don't get panic, don't be disheartened, do not get angry with agitated parents, do not take brake - we had to work as a team to treat efficiently to save every life.
I consoled grieving parents who had lost their kids, I counselled those agitated parents who were getting angry after losing their kids. There was so much chaos. I explained to them liquid O2 is finished, but we are trying to make it with jumbo oxygen cylinders.
I yelled/screamed to everyone to focus on savings lives. I cried. Actually everyone in the team cried to see the havoc created by the Administrative failure to pay the dues to the liquid oxygen suppliers - resulting in such a grave situation.
We did not stop trying until liquid oxygen tank arrived around 1:30 am on 13-08-2017.
But my life turned upside down when CM Yogiji Maharaj arrived next morning on 13-08-17. He asked – so you are Dr Kafeel? You arranged cylinders?
I was like – yes sir.
He got angry – so you think by arranging cylinders, you became hero, I will see it.
Yogiji was angry because – how this incident came into the media. I swear to my Allah, I did not inform any media person that night. They were already there that night itself.
Then police started coming to our home – hounding, threatening, torturing my family. People warned they would kill me in an encounter. My family, my mother, my wife, my kids were so scared that I do not have words.
I surrendered to save my family from the humiliation, misery – thinking when I have not done anything wrong, I should get justice.
But numbers of days, weeks and months passed – August, 2017 to April, 2018. Holi came, Dussehra came, Christmas gone, New Year came, Diwali came – every date – Tareekh Par Tareekh (date after dates) hoping will get bail. Then we realised that judiciary is also working under pressure. (Even they acknowledged the same)
Sleeping on floor with more than 150 prisoners in a cramped barrack with millions of mosquito at night and thousands of flies in the day. Trying to swallow food to live, bath half naked in the field and sit in a toilet with broken door. Waiting for Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday to meet my family.
Life is hell, miserable not only for me but for my whole family. They had to run from one pillar to another – from police station to court, from Gorakhpur to Allahabad – in hope of justice. But all in vain.
My daughter whose first bithday I could not celebrate is now 1 year 7 months old. As a pediatrician, it is very painful, disheartening not to see his child to grow. As a pediatrician, I used to taught parents importance of milestones and myself do not know when my daughter started walking, speaking and running.
So now again that question haunts me – am I really guilty? No, no – NO.
I was on leave on 10th August 2017. (It was sanctioned by my HoD). Still, I rushed to do my duties – is that wrong?
They made me head of the department, vice chancellor of BRD, prabhari (in-charge) of 100-bed acute encephalitis syndrome (AEH) ward. I am a junior most doctor and joined only on 08-08-2016 as a permanent employee. I was working as nodal officer with NRHM and lecturer pediatrics. My whole work is to teach students, treat kids. I was nowhere involved with purchase/tender/order/maintenance/supply/payment of liquid oxygen/jumbo cylinders.
If Pushpa Sales (the official supplier) stopped liquid oxygen supply, how am I responsible for that? Even non medico could tell doctors’ work is to treat, not to buy oxygen.
The guilty are DM Gorakhpur, DGME (director general of medical education), principal secretary health education for not taking any action against 14 reminders sent by Pushpa Sales for its Rs 68 lakh dues.
It was a total administrative failure at higher level, they did not realise the gravity and just to save themselves, they made us scapegoat and put us behind the bars so that truth will remain inside Gorakhpur jail.
When Manish Bhandari (director of Pushpa Sales) got bail, we same same light that may be now we would also get justice and come out to live with my family and to serve again.
But No – we are still waiting.
Supreme Court says – bail is the right, prison is exception. This is a classical example of miscarriage of justice.
I hope time would come and I would be free with my family and my daughter. Truth will prevail. Justice would be served.
A helpless, broken heart father, husband, brother, son and friend
Varying accounts report between 9 and 18 deaths in 15 days and 800 instances of poisoning and 25 losing vision among farmers and farm labourers after spraying Profex Super pesticide on their Bt Cotton crops in Yavatmal. While most mainstream media is content to attribute the poisoning to farmers not taking adequate safety measures while spraying the crops, this blithe explanation doesn't quite cover what went down. The government needs to investigate the crisis immediately.
Local farmer leaders agree that there is inadequate regulation of manufacturers of pesticides and are angry that the farmer is being blamed for his own death as though they don't know how to spray pesticides on their own crops. An incident of this sort is unheard of for them as well.
'Profex Super' insecticide - contents, toxicity
Profex Super insecticide by Nagarjuna Agrichem (not linking because Google indicates the site may be hacked) contains Profenofos (an organophosphate) 40% + Cypermethrin (synthetic pyrethroid) 4% EC and its toxicity profile is between moderate to severe. Both are neurotoxins and have been implicated in harm to environment and other insects and animals. Both are dangerous to humans in high enough doses. However, a pesticide formulated for use on crops is formulated with the knowledge that there will be some inevitable human exposure and deaths from exposure like spraying do not seem to be a normal effect of a pesticide.
Failure of Bt Cotton?
Bt Cotton, promoted because of the inclusion of theBacillus thuringiensis gene in a genetically modified version of cotton, was intended to be lethal to various insects that feed on the foliage while being harmless to other life forms. It is known for a long time that pests have developed a resistance to the Bt strains used and thus, a crop intended to lower the use of insecticides instead is making headlines for farmers dying of insecticide exposure from spraying them.
While the city based authors of articles on agriculture may see the possibility of farmers having inadvertently killed themselves through inadequate protection, it is worth mentioning that this is hardly agriculture's first prom when it comes to pesticides. Farmers have been spraying pesticides on crops for decades now. In fact, they have also been using pesticides to commit suicides when things get hopeless. It is rather naive to think farmers don't understand pesticide exposure or can just accidentally poison themselves to death. Even without adequate protections, the symptoms of exposure would include skin irritation, numbness, nausea and various other low key symptoms way before absorption through skin reached lethal levels. This is not a newly invented pesticide.
In fact, among the recorded deaths from Cypermethrin includes an accidental exposure that resulted in the death of one man when a 10% solution of Cypermethrin was accidentally used instead of cooking oil and consumed. One man died. Another recovered after being treated in hospital. Similar studies exist for other pesticides. Any pesticide with the potential to cause inadvertent death from absorption through the skin would not easily be released for spraying on crops!!!
Why only Yavatmal?
It is hardly like only farmers in Yavatmal use pesticides. So why has this crisis happened only in Yavatmal? The pesticide used by the farmers needs to be investigated. Was there a bad batch that got distributed to Yavatmal?
Was the pesticide formulated as per the claims on the labels?
Organophosphates are among the most lethal toxins invented by man. While they are widely used in pesticides, depending on formulation, they can also be lethal to humans in small quantities - think nerve gas, Sarin. If a pesticide is not being manufactured with adequate quality control, it can cause serious issues for lives, health, environment. Spraying of pesticide on outdoor crops, while still toxic, should not result in mass deaths and hospitalizations unless there is something wrong with the pesticide. This pesticide most certainly does not sound like it contains what it says on its labels. Either the contents are more lethal than disclosed or the quantities are.
The government needs to move IMMEDIATELY
The government needs to do the following:
Issue an urgent - red alert level - advisory publicized widely on all platforms to not sell or use any Profex Super pesticide till the matter is investigated.
Collect the used containers of the pesticide (and sprayers and such) from farmers who were affected and have them analyzed
Conduct post mortems on dead farmers to establish the cause of death and chemicals involved.
Depending on the analysis, remove the warning about the Profex Super pesticide or call for a complete withdrawal and action against the manufacturer.
Analyze samples from sprayed crops for toxicity and destroy if found toxic (cottonseed oil is used for commercial snack foods frying!)
Develop strong safeguards on use of dangerous chemicals in agriculture, educate farmers on safe use of chemical inputs, provide free and mandatory face masks and gloves along with containers of pesticide (we do it for freaking hair color!)
Anjali Damania reported that she got a threatening call from a number in Pakistan, Karachi asking her to drop all cases against Eknath Khadse.
Transcript of the threatening call to Anjali Damania:
Caller: Anjali bol rahi hai?
Anjali: Haan...
Caller: Anjali, tune jo case kiya na khadse pe
Anjali: haan...
Caller: woh waapas le
Anjali: kaun bol raha hai?
Caller: Main koi bhi bol raha hun, tune jo case kiya hai na khadse pe woh waapis le saare case. nahi to tera main jeena haram kar dunga.
Anjali: bol kaun raha hai ya..?
Caller: [inaudible] tu family waali hai na?
Anjali: are par ye kaun, bol kaun raha hai?
Caller: Main koi bhi bol raha hun. woh jaanna tere liye jaroori nahi hai. theek hai? tune bahut jeena haram kar diya hai sabka
True caller shows the number to be from Pakistan.
This is the same number AAP had earlier alleged that Eknath Khadse received calls from Pakistan from. Hacker Manish Bhangale had claimed in a press conference that he had hacked the website of Pakistan Telecommunications to acquire that information. At that time, Eknath Khadse had claimed that his number was inactive and that someone may have cloned his SIM or that the hacker may have planted his number as well. That doesn't explain a call from the number now threatening Anjali Damania to withdraw the case against him.
The number shown in the service request appears to belong to Eknath Khadse.
Anjali Damania has lodged an FIR and informed the Chief Minister and Jt CP Crime is investigating the matter.
Statement by Aam Aadmi Party on threat to Anjali Damania
Khadse Dawood Nexus Exposed Once Again
AAP Condemns threat to Activist Anjali Damania
Press Note 23rd September 2017
In the wee hours of today morning activist Anjali Damania got a call from a Pakistan based number +92 21 35871719. The caller threatened her to withdraw all cases against BJPs Ex Revenue Minisiter Eknath Khadse. Anjali has shared the recorded call in which she and her family have been threatened. Subsequently she informed Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and he has asked Joint Commissioner Crime to investigate the matter.
The Aam Aadmi Party says that this kind of investigation is completely inadequate and the investigation must be handed over specialised agencies like, RAW or IB as this number is said to belong to Dawood Ibrahim.
Ethical hacker Maneesh Bhangale had said this number belongs to Mehjabeen Shaikh, wife of the Dawood Ibrahim and was registered in Karachi. Given below is an attachment that he had shared of a communication between Pakistan Telecom with Mehjabeen Shaikh regarding that same number. Maneesh had said that Eknath Khadse's mobile number was frequently called from this very number - +92 21 35871719. Further, media sources had shown that this number is noted as belonging to Dawood Ibrahim's residence in the files of Indian Intelligence agencies too.
When the AAP demanded that Maneesh Bhangale's claims be investigated the Joint Commissioner Crime had given Ekanth Khadse the fastest in the world - in just 4 hours. How can we expect the same department to do a thorough investigation to the threat to Anjali?! The Joint CP at that time, Atulchandra Kulkarni then moved to ATS where once again he failed to investigate the matter. Instead, on a flimsy complaint by Eknath Khadse's associate Ravi Bhangale, the Cyber Police arrested and is harassing Maneesh Bhangale till date.
This call to Anjali is on Ekanth Khadse's behalf, from Dawood's residence. What more proof is required that Ekanth Khadse and Dawood Ibrahim work together? What is more important is that the state has totally failed to provide safety to Activists and Journalists and we fear for the safety of Anjali Damania and her family. We demand that this investigation be handed over to a national agency which cannot be influenced by Eknath Khadse the way the state Crime Department was influenced in the past. Anjali Damania should be provided police security immediately. The whole state stands with Anjali in her crusade against corruption.
