New Delhi / Bhubaneswar, May 23: Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh today echoed the Maoists by saying that many innocent tribal people are being implicated in false cases and put behind bars.

Ramesh today shot off letters to chief ministers of Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, seeking their intervention to ensure that innocent tribals, those who have been languishing in jails for no valid reason, get justice.

The letters assume significance in the backdrop of Maoists kidnapping a district collector in Chhattisgarh and two Italians and a MLA in Odisha and releasing them after reported assurance from the respective state governments that several prisoners would be released.

Professor G. Haragopal, who negotiated with the Chhattisgarh government on behalf of the Maoists when Sukma collector Alex Paul Menon was kidnapped, had earlier written to Ramesh requesting him to intervene for release of innocent tribals in the state.

Haragopal had said that during the negotiation, the Chhattisgarh government had agreed to review all cases of tribal prisoners and help in releasing them. Haragopal has said the state government has agreed to set up a committee to consider cases of six jailed Maoists, including a person suffering from Hepatitis B.

“Haragopal asked me to use my good office with you in favour of the innocent tribals now languishing in jail,” Ramesh wrote in the letter to Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh. The letter was sent on May 15.

In separate letters to Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik and Jharkhand chief minister Arjun Munda, Ramesh today wrote that a large number of tribal people have been put behind bars for “no reason” in Maoist-affected areas. He discovered this during his interactions with the local people, NGOs and police officials during his visit to the Maoist-hit areas in the two states.

“In the course of my visits, I had an opportunity of interacting with officials at various levels, with NGOs and other people at large. One point that comes out loud and clear is that a large number of tribals are in jail today, for no reason whatsoever, and that in reality, they should be freed at the earliest. I have heard this ironically from police officials also both in the state and Centre,” Ramesh wrote in his letters to Naveen and Munda.

Jairam’s views echo what the Maoists have been saying over the years that the state governments are implicating innocent tribal people in false cases. During the recent negotiations with the Odisha government, the Maoists had demanded release of several prisoners.

“I know that you are working with the Centre to deal with the extraordinary situation that prevails in the Naxal-affected districts. It is in this background that I have been emboldened to write to you to convey this feedback that I have received. Clearly something must be done urgently to ensure justice to innocent and unfairly jailed tribals or to those tribals who are in jail on very flimsy grounds,” Ramesh wrote in the letters.

Significantly, the Naveen’s missive arrived on a day when the CPI (Maoist) central committee released a hard hitting statement that sought to debunk Union home minister P. Chidambaram’s stand on the recent abductions and violence by the rebels in Odisha and Chhattisgarh.

Making it clear that ransom or vendetta was not on the mind of the rebels who took two Italians, a legislator and a district collector hostage in these states, the Maoist central committee spokesperson, Abhay described these as “arrests” by people who wanted to bring the plight of the oppressed masses, especially the tribals, into focus.

“3,000 tribals are in jails in Chhattisgarh while 6,000 tribals are in jails in Jharkhand. Thousands more are jailed in Punjab, Uttarakhand, Bihar, Maharashtra, Odisha, Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and other states. Peasants fighting the landlords and police atrocities have been put in jails in areas like Narayanapatna and Lalgarh. They had been implicated under false cases and denied bails in the most unjust manner,” said Abhay, who also claimed that there was no division among the Maoists in Odisha.