Suman

New Delhi, March 5: Singer and Trinamul Congress MP Kabir Suman today joined forces with civil rights groups to condemn the UPA government’s offensive against Naxalites.

Suman’s letter of support to civil rights groups demanding an end to the “so-called Operation Green Hunt” against tribals was read out at a media briefing in New Delhi today.

In his letter dated March 4, Suman expressed his inability to attend today’s meet against “the so-called Operation Green Hunt” because of illness. “As an AITMC MP, I support the UPA government but I believe that I have the democratic right to oppose some of its policies. Operation Green Hunt is one of them,” Suman said.

He said it wasn’t just the Maoists indulging in killings but “almost every parliamentary party has been vigorously engaged in political violence” that has claimed 100 lives in South 24-Parganas alone since May 16, 2009.

Suman included lines from a Bengali song he had penned last year to highlight the poverty that tribals live in — nothing much landed on your plate/ which is why you took a gun in your hand....

He likened the operation to “mrigayas” — “the hunting expeditions that ancient Indian kings undertook every year... indiscriminately killed beasts of prey in those operations. Today’s kings are waging a war on their own poor people....”

Writer Arundhati Roy, who was present at the briefing, alleged the government was under pressure from mining companies to wage war on tribals.