The Dispossessed

The systematic creation of criminal and security legislations view Adivasis as an inherently suspect class of criminals and terrorists

- By Radhika Chitkara

ON September 19, 2024, Kartik Naik, a prominent leader of the Maa Mati Maali Surakhya Manch was arrested on multiple allegations under the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including of unlawful assembly, causing grievous hurt and attempt to murder. As part of the Manch, Naik had been organising Adivasis in several villages of Rayagada and Kalahandi districts of Odisha against a proposed bauxite mine by Vedanta which would subsume 1,549 hectares of land, including 699 hectares of pristine forests, in the Sijimali/Tijmali hills.

Earlier the same year, on June 3, 2024, Suneeta Pottam, Vice President of the Moolniwasi Bachao Manch (MBM), was arrested by the Bijapur police in Raipur without a warrant or informing her of the grounds of arrest. Since 2021, MBM had been organising against the establishment of security camps on customary lands without their free, prior and informed consent, human rights violations by security personnel, and the mass incarceration of Adivasis on allegations of extremism. As Pottam battled 12 criminal cases and got acquitted in nine, the Chhattisgarh government banned the MBM under the Chhattisgarh Special Public Safety Act (CSPSA) in October 2024 for creating public order disturbances and opposing state-led development works. In April 2025, she was rearrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), this time under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), on allegations that the MBM was a front of a banned terrorist organisation. Pottam remains in custody even today.