The family of Nambala Keshava Rao (alias Basavaraju), the general secretary of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist), have filed a contempt petition against the Chhattisgarh police for cremating his body in violation of an Andhra Pradesh High Court order. The petition accused the police of wilful disobedience.
The court had earlier directed the police to hand over the body of the top Maoist leader to his relatives. However, on May 26, the police cremated the bodies of seven Maoist leaders including Keshava Rao, even as the families from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh had been camping outside the Narayanpur district hospital since May 22.
Keshava Rao, along with 26 others, were killed in an anti-Maoist operation in Narayanpur’s Abujhmarh forest on May 21. The operation was carried out by the District Reserve Guard (DRG), a unit comprising former Maoists.
On May 24, the Andhra Pradesh High Court had directed the Chhattisgarh police to hand over Keshava Rao’s body to his family members after completing the autopsy. Despite the families’ wishes to take back the bodies to their native place and conduct final rites as per their religious customs, the police claimed that there had been “no legal claimant” for the seven bodies.
“Whereas there was no clear legal claimant for the remaining 07 Naxal dead bodies including that of top ranked Naxal cadre CPI Maoist general secretary Basavaraju. All those 08 Naxal dead bodies (including that dead body of Maoist cadre Kosi @ Hungi, which was cremated by the family members) were cremated in Narayanpur as per the legal procedure with due order from the executive magistrate,” a police statement said.
Police claimed that all basic and humanitarian courtesy had been extended in cremating the “disowned and unclaimed Naxal dead bodies by following due legal procedures”.
However, the family members said that they were made to run between the Police Superintendent’s office and the Hospital seeking certificates attesting that they were indeed the family members of the deceased.
Speaking to TNM, Keshava Rao’s younger brother Nambala Ramprasad, who was stationed in Narayanpur to secure his brother’s body, alleged that the police tried convincing them that the body was severely decomposed. “They said that the bodies were decayed; and allowing us to take over the body would become a public health concern. However, we remained firm in our demand to collect the body and return to our village. But they refused outrightly. They gave us an ultimatum saying that the bodies will be cremated within 25 minutes and asked us to invite all the family members to attend it. But we did not budge,” Ramprasad recalled.
He alleged that the police officials tried to take advantage of his lack of understanding Hindi and asked him to sign some papers written in Hindi. He said, “I did not understand what it was.”
The said document, accessed by TNM, was a petition written on behalf of Ramprasad to provide the family with the ashes of his brother. The petition said that since he could not provide valid documents to prove that he is the brother of Keshava Rao, the district and police administration cremated the dead body owing to public health concerns.
Keshava Rao’s elder brother Dhilleswara Rao alleged that the police had attempted to arrest his brother Ramprasad as he refused to sign the documents. Fearing arrest, Ramprasad reached Andhra Pradesh on the night of Tuesday, May 27.
Dhilleswara Rao expressed agony that his family could not even see the mortal remains of the deceased Maoist leader. “He left us 45 years ago. My mother is 82-years-old. We wanted to see his face for the last time. We wanted to conduct the last rites as per our customs and bury him next to our father. This was denied by the police. This is nothing but contempt of the court’s orders.”
Both the Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh police were not inclined to release the bodies of Maoists, particularly Keshava Rao’s, fearing that a public funeral would allow his glorification as a “Maoist hero”. They also had apprehensions that a memorial would be constructed in his honour.
Earlier, the Coordination Committee for Peace (CCP) – an initiative comprising academics, human rights advocates, and social activists – had expressed shock over the allegations of the bodies being left to decay instead of keeping them in a cold storage. Citing the Supreme Court ruling and the UN Human Rights Commission Resolution, they said that the dead Maoists deserved dignity in death.