By most standards, none of the items seized from the hut of Vittala Malekudiya and his father Lingappa Malekudiya during their arrest in March 2012 could be described as spectacular. There were no guns or bombs, no explosive Maoist literature or pamphlets calling for an armed uprising against the state. Yet, it took nine years for Vittala and Lingappa to prove that they are not Naxals. They spent four months in prison and have lost count of the number of trips to the court, lawyer and the police in all this time.
Here’s the list of materials presented to the court by the Anti-Naxal Force to back their allegation that the 23-year-old journalism student and his father were members of the dreaded Communist Party of India (Maoist-Leninist) People's War: A cupboard containing school books, old newspapers and four pamphlets. The first was an undated statement from the Malenadu Karavali Ulisi Horata Vedike, a well-known environmentalist group, condemning the displacement of tribal people by the government. The second pamphlet was from 2008 and called for a protest against government acquisition of tribal lands. It was signed by 19 organizers with their phone numbers. The third and fourth pamphlets were from 2010 and called for a boycott of the elections for the failure of successive governments to provide basic amenities to tribal areas. They also found a book on Bhagat Singh.
“It is unusual, at most, to find so much reading material in the humble hut of a Malekudiya tribal deep inside the forests of Kudremukh. But Vittala is an unusual boy, a brilliant boy. The first post-graduate, the first journalist from the Malekudiya tribal community,” says Dinesh Ulepady, his lawyer, before adding, "Unusual in a brilliant way, not a criminal way."
The rest of the seizures from the Malekudiya household make for a slightly excruciating read: A nylon bag with steel plates, tumblers, cups, a kitchen knife, tea, coffee and sugar. A cloth bag with a pair of binoculars, a broken plastic torch, toothbrushes and a kitchen knife. A plastic bag containing a Nokia mobile phone, school books and two phone battery charging clips.
The chargesheet said that newspaper clips and documents found in the cupboard were anti-government, anti-police and critical of the combing operations being carried out by the ANF. It said that when asked about the items, the father and son could not provide "satisfactory answers."
Accusing the police of building a case intended purely to harass the tribal people, Ulepady says, "There was simply no such material related to Maoism. The newspaper clips were related to the ecology of the Western Ghats and about tribal rights."
The chargesheet does not provide any further evidence showing any association with a banned organization or outlaw. Yet the father-son duo was charged with sedition, conspiracy and terror and endured a nine-year legal struggle before things began to change and feel closer to normal last month.
Vittal Malekudiya, 32, and Lingappa Malekudiya, 60, were arrested on March 3, 2012, from their home in Kuthlur village in Dakshina Kannada district of Karnataka. At the time of his arrest, Vittala was a 23-year-old postgraduate student of journalism at Mangaluru University. He was the first person from the Malekudiya community to attend college and it was not common at the time for those from the community to dream of a life beyond their forest home.
But Vittala and a few other youngsters from his village were changing that. They were pursuing higher education and at the same time, they were fighting for a better life in their village. They were insisting that people from their village should boycott the Parliamentary elections to drive home their demands for basic amenities. They were resisting the Karnataka government’s plan to displace their community from the forests. This made Vittala a dissenter in the government’s eyes.
It was in this context that the Anti-Naxal Force raided Kuthlur and barged into Vittala's home on March 2, 2012. Then, Kuthlur was a remote tribal village located in the forests of the Kudremukh National Park. The nearest health centre was 12 km away, the nearest bus stop was 8 km away, and the nearest tar road was a 3 km walk through thick forests.
Kuthalur
At the time of the raid, Vittala was not at home. He was studying journalism at Mangaluru University and was staying in the hostel in Mangaluru, 60 km away from Kuthlur. According to Vittala, the police not only barged into Vittala's home but also assaulted his father Lingappa with a stick and fractured his left foot.
Police statements submitted in court deny that the police attacked Lingappa. They say that Lingappa hurt himself when he was trying to escape but Vittala contests this and insists that his father was assaulted by the police with a stick.
Vittala rushed to Kuthlur the next afternoon to take his father to a hospital. He stopped a few hundred metres away from his home and saw from a distance that it was swarming with police officers. “I had spoken to journalists who had advised me against going to my home but I wanted to go there and take my father to the hospital,” says Vittala.
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When he reached his house, he saw that the police officers had removed many of the household items and thrown them in a heap outside. A few minutes after he reached home, Vittala and his father were asked to accompany the police in their jeep. They were taken to Venoor Police Station 13 km away and arrested.
There were reasons to explain why the police targeted the Malekudiyas. They were aware of Vittala’s reputation as a student leader who was involved in protests organised by the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI), the youth wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).
Naveen Soorinje, a journalist working in Mangaluru at the time, says that Vittala was a vital source of information for journalists looking to report on happenings in the forests around the Kudremukh national park. “Vittala was active in reporting the activities of the police in his village and this made the police unhappy. Till then, they had free reign and there was no one reporting on the police’s operations to search for Naxals in and around Kuthlur village,“ says Naveen.
Handcuffed Vittala writing his university examinations
On March 2 2012, the day of the raid in Kuthlur, Vittala had sounded out to journalists that Cheenkra Malekudiya, an elderly person from his community, was illegally detained by the police. Later, it emerged that the police had taken him along to identify houses of residents in the forests. He was let go by the police at the end of the day.
The fact that Cheenkra Malekudiya’s detention was on the news irked the police. "The police targeted Vittala and his father suspecting that he had leaked the news about Cheenkra's detention to reporters," says Naveen Soorinje.
According to him, the police suspected that Vittala had passed on information to reporters. They also suspected he had previously passed on information about police officers turning up in his village, conducting searches and asking people to accept the state government’s rehabilitation plan to move away from the forests.
The raid in Kuthlur in 2012 was conducted based on intelligence received by the then commandant of the Anti-Naxal Force Alok Kumar, who held the rank of Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG). This is confirmed by the investigating inspector Sachin Lawrence, who submitted to the district court that he did not have prior information about Vittala and his father, and that he was informed a day before the arrest by Alok Kumar himself.
Vittala and his lawyer both insist Alok Kumar was present when Kuthlur was raided on March 2 and Lingappa Malekudiya was left with a fractured foot. Alok Kumar has had a chequered history in the Karnataka police. In 2019, he was questioned by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in connection with the phone-tapping case in which hundreds of phones linked to MLAs, opposition leaders, and even seers were tapped, reportedly at the behest of the then Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy. In 2015, he was suspended over his reported role in an illegal lottery racket scam. He was probed after it emerged that Alok Kumar was in constant touch with Pari Ranjan, the prime accused and the kingpin of the scam. Alok Kumar was given a clean chit by the CBI in this case in 2020.
Vittala's father Lingappa Malekudiya
Between 2011 and 2013, Alok Kumar headed the Anti-Naxal Force based in Karkala of Udupi district. "The commandant officer Alok Kumar questioned me during my custody and the police were convinced I was a Naxal even without having evidence to prove it. There was no reason given to me for the raid and arrest in our home. It was just explained away as a Naxal combing operation," Vittala says. Five other alleged Naxals — Vikram Gowda, Pradeepa, John, Prabha and Sundari — were named in an FIR along with the Malekudiyas in the same case, but they were never arrested. Before the trial in the district court, the case against the five, who are allegedly absconding in a neighbouring state, was separated from that of the Malekudiyas.
Vittala and his father, however, were charged with sedition, criminal conspiracy and terror under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). Vittala spent four months in jail between March and July 2012 while his father was admitted at Mangaluru's Wenlock Hospital after his injuries.
In this time, Vittala was allowed to write his university examinations but he was forced to do it wearing handcuffs and in the presence of the police. The visual of Vittala, in handcuffs, and writing an examination guarded by police officers, sparked outrage and criticism, and the then Chief Minister Sadananda Gowda of the BJP said that the case against Vittala would be withdrawn. This was after CPI(M) leaders including Brinda Karat met Sadananda Gowda at the Parliament in Delhi to discuss Vittala's arrest. In fact, the chargesheet in the case was not filed when the BJP was in power in the state due to protests. It was only filed in 2015 when the state government was led by the former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah of the Congress.
Vittala writing university examinations in handcuffs
In the court trial, Vittala’s lawyer Dinesh Ulepady accepted that all the items seized by the police as evidence belonged to him. “That was our stance. Yes, the items belonged to him but there is nothing wrong in keeping paper cuttings on reports about Naxals and books on Bhagat Singh," says Dinesh Ulepady.
"We asked (the police) what was wrong in reading the articles on Naxals or books on Bhagat Singh. This is a basic Constitutional right given to everyone. We also told the court that he (Vittala) had written the letter found in his house. We asked what is wrong in demanding basic amenities for his village,” says Dinesh Ulepady. He adds that a police officer involved in the case too admitted in the court that the seized materials were “household articles.”
The police however continued to insist that the Malekudiyas were part of a Naxal group. They built their case on three mobile phones seized from Vittala's home and claimed that it was key to proving Vittala and his father were working with Naxals. But during the course of the trial which lasted till October 2021, the police failed to find any evidence in the mobile phones.
The Dakshina Kannada district judge BB Jakati, hearing the case, said that the police did not show any incriminating evidence in the mobile phones seized in the case. “The CDR (call detail records) of these mobiles have not been produced. Even during the course of the trial, the prosecution has not shown the incriminating evidence available in original mobiles seized…Mere seizure of mobiles from the custody of accused or at their instance would not help the case of the prosecution in any manner,” the judgment by BB Jakati read.
The judge further pointed out that having books on Bhagat Singh and newspaper cuttings are not in violation of the law. “Possessing the books of Bhagat Singh is not barred under the law...reading of such newspapers is not barred under the law...mere possession of paper cuttings of a newspaper does not amount to an offence," the judgment read.
The judgment was a vindication of Vittala’s persistent assertions over the years that he was innocent and that his family was not involved with Naxals. He now questions why there is no action taken against the police for conducting an investigation for nine years, without having evidence. "I want to ask why action should not be taken on the police. At the time police used to force their way into houses and conduct searches arbitrarily and also asked us to leave our village and take the government compensation to move elsewhere,” says Vittala.
Vittala graduated from Mangaluru University in 2014 and is now a journalist with a Kannada daily in Bengaluru. Before joining the paper, he pursued activism and politics. He contested the gram panchayat polls in Kuthlur in 2015 but he decided to leave the CPI(M) and become a journalist in 2018. He was first posted for a year in Mangaluru and then for eight months in Tumakuru. He is now based in Bengaluru and regularly visits his home in Kuthlur.
He says that the legal struggle threatened to wear him down but he was able to keep fighting through friends and strangers who believed him. “It was the kindness and support of the people in my village and many from outside, even strangers, which made me continue believing and fighting the case,” Vittala says. “MLAs and MPs, who had earlier never visited our village, came to our home to give support. Journalists did ground reports and showed the reality of our village to the public,” he says.
Kuthalur
He says the condition of his village has improved in the last nine years and crucially, the police are not raiding their homes claiming the presence of Naxals. “We still have problems to solve because we still live deep in the forest. Many of the demands we placed in 2012 are still unfulfilled but the raids by the police have reduced. There is no one calling us Naxals anymore,” says Vittala.
But he adds that it has become much more difficult for people like him to voice their opinion and fight for their rights. “I see many young people, students and activists, similarly targeted and called anti-national just because they think differently and this atmosphere has worsened in recent years. People need to understand we are asking for our rights and we are being vocal about this,” Vittala says.
