Suneeta Pottam: A saga of Continued arbitrary detention
By Rinchin
(Rinchin is from the queer movement an independent film maker, and a national council member of the PUCL who lives in Raipur)
It has been nine months since Suneeta has been in jail but her spirt remains unbroken. Angry at the injustice but not despondent. This month she is busy writing her class tenth exams, something that she had wanted to do for a long time, and it was this reason that she had come to Raipur. To recontinue her studies. It was from Raipur that the police picked her up and charged her in 13 cases. Out of which she has been acquitted in nine.
Each time someone visits her she expresses a range of emotions, from wanting to know what is going on outside to asking for books, to teaching and learning to play volley ball so that all the inmates can play. She worries about her mother’s health, her family’s situation and inquires in detail the progress on her cases.
When she lived with all of us in our common house in Raipur, she had made a time table. The day started at five am and ended at 10 pm with activities ranging from cooking, cleaning, recreation and exercise. The time table is still there as a form of inspiration stuck on a wall.
Wishing her the best of luck for her exam and hope she is with us soon.
Who is Suneeta Potam ?
25-year-old Adivasi activist and Human Rights Defender Suneeta Pottam, a resident of village Korcholi in Bijapur district was dragged on the floor pulling her out of her temporary residence in Raipur around 8.30 am on June 3, 2024 by a team of Bijapur district police led by DSP Garima Dadar.
Suneeta Pottam had gone to Raipur to complete her class 10 by Open School and was staying with colleagues from a woman’s collective to prepare for her entrance test when she was picked up from her place of residence. In the most shocking way, the other two colleagues were pushed inside the room and bolted from outside before the DSP dragged Pottam pushing her in to an unregistered vehicle threatening the landlady not to open the door. They waved a paper that had her cases listed, but did not give the copy to anyone. She was then whisked away in an unmarked car.
A human rights defender since her younger days, Suneeta Pottam has been a thorn in the eyes of Bijapur police as she has been raising her voice against atrocities, especially against women, committed by the police in Bijapur.
In 2016, Suneeta Pottam had petitioned before Chhattisgarh High Court (Suneeta Pottam & Others Vs State of Chhattisgarh and Others WP(PIL)82/2016) against the extra judicial killings of six persons in 2016 in the villages of Kadenar, Palnar, Korcholi and Andri of Bijapur district.
Suneeta Pottam is an active member of People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) Chhattisgarh and a member of national women’s organization – WSS (Women against Sexual Violence and State Repression since 2015. At the local level she has been leading several ongoing protests against widening of roads piercing through several villages, cutting hundreds of fruit bearing trees. The road widening is being done without holding any Gram Sabha thereby being in complete violation of the PESA Act. Pottam has been in the forefront of the struggle to hold the government accountable to the Adivasis of Bastar and been working to bring real development to Bastar such as schools, hospitals, and forest-based livelihood options rather than opening mining lease to private companies to extract the mineral resources from under the dense forests.
She raised the issue with the police of the practice of wanton arrests of Adivasis enroute to their forests or labour work to Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and their incarceration for days together in the local thana as their family hung around outside the thana for their release.
In January this year, Suneeta Pottam had highlighted the death of the six-month old baby in Mutvendi in an alleged encounter on 1st January this year which the police had declared as death in cross-firing. This had brought a lot of attention to the large numbers of civilian deaths in alleged Naxal-police encounters in the recent months.
On several occasions, Suneeta Pottam along with other young villagers who formed an Adivasi Youth Forum called Mulwasi Bachao Manch, have met not only with district and state administration, but also with the then Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel to apprise them of the condition of the village.
Instead of listening to the voice of the young Adivasis, the police have been threatening them with cases against them. The state and central government also conspired to ban the Moolniwasi Bachao Manch in Nov 2024, making a mockery of the constitutional guarantee of the right to freedom of association.