The Asia Indigenous Peoples’ Pact (AIPP) strongly condemns the attempted murder of Ms. Anjali Daimary, the President of Boro Women’s Justice Forum (BWJF) and a prominent human rights defender.
According to our reliable sources, Ms Daimary was shot at 1:30 PM local time on 8th October 2009 in front of the Barama College gate where she is a lecturer. While she was inside her car with some colleagues about to go home, two un-identified young men approached them and asked Ms. Daimari to get out of the car as they wanted to talk to her. Sensing danger, Ms. Daimari instead docked down and asked the driver to speed- away, while these young men suddenly fired their guns. They escaped unhurt but it was an incident that almost took the life of Ms. Anjali Daimari as well as those of her colleagues and the driver. This case was immediately reported to the local police station.
Such attempts on the lives of human rights defenders in Assam have been a case of common occurrence and we are deeply concern for the safety of Anjali Diamari. This is not the first time that prominent leaders and activists of BWJF have come under the attack from alleged elements of state sponsored mercenaries or by its agencies. Earlier on, in 1996, the General Secretary of BWJF Ms Golapi Basumatary was shot dead along with five others when miscreants fired at them indiscriminately. The perpetrators still roam scot free till today.
Ms. Daimary is already a victim of injustice by the state. She was kidnapped and kept blind folded for 53 days by the security forces and subsequently jailed for 6 months under fabricated charges until she was acquitted of all charges by the court in 2005. This transgression of human rights by the state should never be tolerated, and justice should be served. The recent attempt on the life of Ms. Daimari is certainly not in isolation to her continuing work as a human rights defender and as an indigenous activist.
We therefore appeal for the immediate conduct of impartial investigation by state authorities, and to guarantee the security of Ms Daimari by taking concrete actions to avert any further threats to her life. The authorities must take all possible means to arrest the perpetrators of this frustrated murder and to ensure that they are penalized
accordingly.
Joan Carling
Secretary General
AIPP ( joan@aippnet.orgjoan@aippnet.org