Rights outfit Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha has reminded Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren, whose government is celebrating four years on Friday, about his 2019 announcement of withdrawal of all pathalgadi cases.

The Mahasabha in a release shared with media on Friday afternoon cites a recent RTI reply of the Superintendent of Police, Khunti district, which informs that five pathalgadi cases in the district are yet to be withdrawn, which also includes the case registered against 20 activists and intellectuals, including octogenarian Jesuit priest Stan Swamy.

“Of the total 21 cases registered by the erstwhile Raghubar Das (BJP) government in Khunti, 16 have been withdrawn,” the statement of the Mahasabha said citing the RTI reply.

The Mahasabha statement claims that on December 29, 2019, Hemant Soren, right after taking oath as chief minister, announced the withdrawal of all pathalgadi cases.

“The announcement was met with widespread appreciation and support. The earlier Jharkhand government, headed by Raghubar Das, had come down heavily on the pathalgadi movement and responded with severe violence and repression. It had filed several cases against the people associated with the movement,” the statement of the Mahasabha claims.

“The police filed several cases against about 200 named accused and more than 10,000 unnamed people under wrong charges that include abetment, obstruction to public servants discharging their duty, creation of public nuisance, criminal intimidation and even sedition. Twenty-eight FIRs related to pathalgadi spread across Khunti (21), Saraikela-Kharsawan (5) and West Singhbhum (2) districts were registered by the Raghubar Das government,” the statement further claims.

“It is worrying that five cases are still pending. Chief minister Soren had strongly protested against the incarceration of Stan Swamy by the Narendra Modi government, but the fake case registered against him by the Raghuvar Das government is yet to be withdrawn,” the statement adds.

Incidentally, word pathalgadi is drawn from a tribal custom of erecting stone plaques on the tomb of tribal people in Jharkhand. It is also done in honour of their ancestors, to announce important decisions regarding their families and villages or to simply mark the boundary of their villages. When the Provisions of the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA) came into force, they started the practice of erecting stone plaques in villages with provisions of the Act inscribed on them. This was done to empower people belonging to the 5th Schedule area on their legal and constitutional safeguards.

However, during the mass protests against the attempt to tweak land tenancy laws by the erstwhile Raghubar Das government tribal groups started the movement in villages especially in Khunti, West Singhbhum, Simdega and Gumla districts in 2017. The protest turned violent when they caught hold of a cop and also held hostage bodyguards of former Khunti MP Karia Munda leading to a police crackdown causing the death of a tribal and filing of police cases.

Incidentally, 84-year-old Father Stan Swamy, a tribal rights activist, was accused by the NIA of conspiring with Maoists to overthrow the Indian government. The Parkinson’s patient was arrested in October 2020 from Namkum near Ranchi in Jharkhand and lodged in a Mumbai jail, where he contracted Covid. He died in custody at a hospital in July 2021, after suffering a cardiac arrest, while waiting for the trial to begin.