Widespread aerial bombing has been undertaken in Madkanguda, Mettaguda, Bottethong, Sakiler, Madpaaduled, Kannemerka, Pottemangum, Bottalanka, Raspalli and Erpad of Pamed and Kistaram blocks of South Bastar at Chhattisgarh-Telangana Border, from 11 am onwards on 11th January, 2023. On the intervening night of 14-15th April 2022, villages namely Bottetong and Mettagudem (Usoor Block), Duled, Sakler, and Pottemangi (Konta Block) of Bijapur and Sukma districts were bombed using drones. A similar aerial attack was conducted on the 19th of April, 2021, when Bastar was asleep, at least 12 bombs were dropped on Adivasi hamlets in between Botalanka and Palagudem villages of Bijapur district.
The regions bombed this year were in proximity to agricultural lands. The forests bombed in April 2022 were also not uninhabited. It is routine for adivasi people to go into the forests as they depend majorly on these forests for their livelihood. Not only that, it was the peak Mahua collecting season when women and children started going into the forests from 3AM in the morning to collect Mahua. Given this extensive access of adivasis to the regions being bombed, these attacks are direct hostilities by security forces against our own citizens. A large number of tribals staged a protest near Bodkel village in a forest region on the Bijapur-Sukma district border on April 27, 2022 demanding a probe into the aerial bombing. After two days of dharna, people of ten villages organised a massive protest on the third day to protest against the ‘drone attack’. Over this month, thousands of tribals have come out in protest across Chhattisgarh. One of the protests was by adivasi women alleging that security drones take footage of them bathing. People in these regions want hospitals, schools, anganwadi and other basic facilities instead of these intense surveillance and state repression. It is beyond imagination that a democratic state continuously drone bombs any civilian areas, let alone its own people.
To facilitate the corporate plunder of Jal-Jangal-Jameen, they are resorting to any possible extent of terror and violence. The ever strong resistance movements and rising people’s struggle against the corporate loot are creating hindrance for the government in helping its corporate friends to carry out the exploitation of resources such as coal, iron ore, limestone, bauxite, and dolomite, as well as significant deposits of tin, manganese ore, gold, and copper. To this they are answering with all forms of terrorism. Security forces killing tribals with impunity, private militia like Salwa Judum, drone strikes, imprisonment enmasse without trial using UAPA etc
