Hundreds of peasants storm a police station in India to free a detained activist

Featured image: peasants surrounding and storming a police station in Rayagada, Odisha. Source: Pragativadi.

Indian media reported at the end of last week that hundreds of indigenous peasants yielding traditional weapons besieged the police station of Kashipur, at the district of Rayagada, Odisha, protesting the arrest of a villager. The peasants entered the property and burned tires while demanding freedom for their comrade, while they were damaging furniture, windows and doors of the building.

The detained was a well-known activists against the activities of mining monopolies. Those monopolies loot the resources, grab the land and expel the indigenous peasants from the area. The activist was detained on Wednesday in a protest against the arrival of a big mining company which wanted to take over of a series of Bauxite mines in the area. Just one day after his arrest, on Thursday, when the peasants saw that their comrade was not released, they marched from several villages to the police station, gathering up to 700 peasants there. Then the old Indian State sent numerous reinforcements and high rank police officers to attempt to control and intimidate the demonstrators, unsuccessfully.

Source: Pragativadi.

This type of situations are not strange in Kashipur, already in previous years the indigenous peasants of the area surrounded and entered in the police station demanding the release of several comrades of their struggle, as it happened in August 2023. The struggle of the peasantry in the Rayagada district, Odisha, has continued for many years. The peasants struggle specially against Bauxite mining because the area is very rich in this resource. The peasants have confronted the police in many occasions as well as officials from the State, making them to withdraw from the area and expelling them from the villages as well as blocking access to their territories.

The old Indian State applies repression against such powerful movement, even kidnapping well-known activists who joined the movement, for example Prafulla Samantara in the summer of 2023. Only during 2023, NIA has carried out numerous raids and has charged hundreds of activists against the mining monopolies. But as we have seen, despite the intensification of the persecution against those peasants who raise their voices, the protests have not stopped and the peasantry keeps struggling and defends its people.