PLFI likes Anosh Ekka, threatens Dayamani Barla

Khunti, April 14

Instead of corruption, the Aam Aadmi Party in Jharkhand has found itself tackling a new enemy while attempting to mount an electoral challenge in the Khunti Lok Sabha constituency: the most dangerous left wing extremist organisation in the state.

AAP's Khunti candidate Dayamani Barla has registered two FIRs and written to the Election Commission after alleged cadres of the People's Liberation Front of India threatened and attacked her supporters. Barla's complaint alleges that the PLFI men asked her cadre to campaign for former state minister Anosh Ekka instead.

The PLFI, which has its origins in Khunti district's Torpa block, is now the most dangerous LWE organisation in the state in terms of incidents: they account for around 36 per cent of them. In comparison, the CPI-Maoist causes only about 34 per cent. With presence mostly in Khunti, Gumla and Simdega districts, the PLFI is considered the major reason why 120 of 150 LWE-related deaths in Jharkhand in 2013 - both national highs - were of civilians.

Barla said that the two attacks were on April 6 and 9 respectively. "At about 4 PM on April 9, six of my supporters and a driver were campaigning at Biguadag village within Karra block. Six armed people reached there in two motorcycles and beat the driver with the butt of a rifle. Meanwhile, everyone's mobile phones were taken away. One of the attackers had snatched away their mobile phones by then," she said. Barla, an adivasi land rights' activist, is up against seven-time BJP MP Kariya Munda apart from the Jharkhand Party's Ekka.

The AAP candidate said that her supporters were asked to campaign for Anosh Ekka, a minister in the Madhu Koda cabinet who faces - among others - cases on disproportionate assets. "One of the men claimed that he was a Zonal Commander of the PLFI. My supporters were made to hold their ears [as if in apology] and say that they would stop campaigning for me and do so only for Ekka. After that, they were told to leave the village, leaving one of the two women in the group back," said Barla.

The woman who was left back could have been killed if it were not for the police, according to Barla. "The held a revolver close to her and asked her to go around the village, touching the feet of people and asking for votes for Anosh Ekka. The police got there by the time she was doing it a third time," she said.

The first threat was on April 6 in Arki block's Birbanki, though AAP activists were not sure whether it was the PLFI. Around three in the afternoon, seven AAP activists were stopped by armed men on motorbikes, who took away their car keys, telling them they would be back within half an hour. When no on returned till seven in the evening, the men split up and escaped on foot, reaching safety by walking all night. Barla says the first signs of trouble came on the day she submitted her nomination papers, when some people tried to stop her supporters from reaching the district headquarters. "Someone also threatened that Jabda village in Karra would be set on fire because my supporters are from there," said Barla.

The AAP activists have not taken the threats lying down, though. "Some of our activists dared to go into Lepa, [PLFI's Supreme Commander] Dinesh Gope's village in Torpa and handed his chachi a pamphlet. We also went into Rania [where the PLFI is known to have held training camps] and nailed pamphlets to walls," said Vinay Bhat, a 30-year-old who has taken a three-month sabbatical from his job as a management consultant in the US to assist Barla's campaign.

The police offered Barla a security cover, which she turned down. "The PLFI men clicked my supporters' pictures on their mobile phones, so we are really worried about what happens when the elections are done," said Barla.

Barla, a former journalist with the Prabhat Khabar newspaper, still operates a tea shop on Ranchi city's Club Road. Two of her most biggest agitations were located within Khunti's Torpa block - the one against the Koel-Karo dam during which eight adivasis were shot dead on February 2, 2001 and against an ArcelorMittal steel plant that would have displaced people in 40 villages. "Back then too, there were threats. However, we did not really know whether it was the politicians of the area who wanted these projects or the extremists who were responsible," she said.

Anis Gupta, Khunti's Superintendent of Police said that the FIRs were being investigated. "There are no names in the April 6 case but we are trying to identify the six men responsible for the April 9 attack," he said.

Khunti has a significant adivasi Christian population, but they broadly fall into two denominations - the Gossner Evangelical Lutheran and Roman Catholic. Anosh Ekka hopes that the two will come together to help him make a stand against the BJP candidate. However, there is a feeling that some of the Catholic votes could go Barla's way.