NEW DELHI: PUDR demands the immediate release of Kartik Naik, a prominent leader of the Maa Maati Maali Surakhya Manch resisting the setting up of a bauxite mine in the Sijimali/ Tijmali hills in Rayagada and Kalahandi districts of Odisha by M/S Vedanta Ltd. Kartik Naik was arrested on 19 September 2024 under an older FIR registered on 12 January 2024 at the behest of Mythri company, affiliated to M/S Vedanta Ltd., under Sections 147, 148, 341, 323, 324, 307, 427, 395, 506, 149 IPC.
These offences relate, among other things, to offences of unlawful assembly, causing grievous hurt and attempt to murder, arising out of protests by affected communities against the bauxite mine. Although Kartik Naik is the sole person to have been arrested on 19 September 2024, the Judicial Magistrate First Class of Kashipur block issued non-bailable warrants for arrest of ten other persons on 29 August 2024. This marks the initiation of a second round of criminal persecution of the people of Rayagada and Kalahandi in relation to the bauxite mine, following a previous crackdown in August-September 2023 wherein more than 20 persons from affected villages were arrested, and an FIR under the UAPA filed against prominent leaders of the movement. All of them have since been released on bail. However, multiple FIRs have been registered in this duration implicating about a hundred persons for resisting the mine, including forty persons in the 12 January FIR alone.
In March 2023, the Odisha government issued a fifty-year mining lease to M/S Vedanta Ltd. for the extraction of bauxite from an area spreading across 1549 hectares in Rayagada and Kalahandi districts of Odisha, including 699 hectares of forest land. Concerns have been raised, both by affected communities and independent reports, on the environmental and human rights impact of the bauxite mine in the dense deciduous forests of the area, which are home to several water bodies, and pristine forests considered to be the homes of local deities. The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Report submitted under the statutory mandate grossly underestimates, and even distorts, the magnitude of environmental and human rights violations potentially arising out of the bauxite mine.