People's Democracy

IN a most shocking judgement, the fast track sessions court of Nashik in Maharashtra has pronounced life imprisonment for Dr D L Karad and 9 others. Dr D L Karad is a leader of the CITU in Nashik and popular among the workers. All these CITU activists have been convicted under sections 302, 120 B (conspiracy), 148, 149 (riot and unlawful assembly) and 427 (mischief) on the Indian Penal Code. It was the Ambad police station in Nashik that had filed a case of riot in the Navbharat Industry in the area of its jurisdiction.

The incident allegedly took place when the management suspended 21 workmen and appointed in their stead 21 workmen on contract basis. The case assumed serious dimensions after the accidental death of one of the employees. The most telltale fact of the matter is that Dr Karad, then a jaundice patient, was confined to his home at the time the said incident took place in 1997.

The CITU has decided to move the High Court in an appeal against the judgement and expects to get justice. Its adversaries who are entertaining hopes that the working class movement in Nashik will now whittle down would soon be disillusioned, said state CITU president Prabhakar Sanzgiri at a militant CITU rally in Nashik on December 3. Due to the anti-working class policies of the government, severest ever miseries were being heaped on the toiling people, while the attempt to suppress the workers’ movement is reaching a climax. Sanzgiri said we may have to withdraw from the state government our support that was given with a view to keeping the communal forces away from power. The rally called it an attack of the capitalist class on the working class movement. It is a conspiracy par excellence on their part, said the rally.

Ashok Dhawale, J P Gavit, Uddhav Bhavalkar, Sumati Sanzgiri, Vivek Monteiro and Saeed Ahmed were among those who addressed the rally, in support of Dr Karad and others convicted. Desale, Gaikwad and Dhatrak extended support on behalf of the Joint Action Committee, Nashik, and so did Chintaman Gavit, Haribhau Mahale, Tanaji Jaybhave and several others. A number of other organisations have also raised their voice against the injustice perpetrated by those in charge of dispensing justice.

The rally wore a look of red all around, and sky-renting slogans in support of Dr Karad and others marked the occasion.