The lawyer discovers disturbing development while speaking to Rediff.com's Prasanna D Zore.
'The whole idea is to intimidate lawyers like me and others who are helping the Adivasi women seek justice and file FIRs against the security personnel for raping them.'
'Many of them are mutilated beyond recognition. Every day an encounter takes place.' 'Bastar has been burnt to ash.'
The Wire news portal, in the third part of its revelations from the international collaborative journalistic investigation called the Pegasus Project, reported that those marked as potential targets for surveillance include Ambedkarite activist Ashok Bharti; academic and chronicler of life in Naxal-dominated regions Bela Bhatia; railway union leader Shiv Gopal Mishra and Delhi-based labour rights activist Anjani Kumar.
Pegasus, which is capable of attacking both Android and iOS, has been around for three years and is considered one of the most sophisticated spyware in the market.
'Under the guise of Maoism, the State is presently determined to clear out the whole Bastar area of its tribal population.'
'Maoists are enraged that the media is reporting the truth.' 'They want to physically isolate the media and psychologically isolate the villagers who have found the confidence to speak to the press about the real situation.' 'Like terrorism ended in Punjab, Naxalism will end in Chhattisgarh,' the AIIMS doctor-turned IPS officer and SP of Dantewada tells Rediff.com's Archana Masih.
'In Bastar, as in Delhi, being branded 'anti-national' in the eyes of the government now seems to have acquired new meaning,' says Aakar Patel.
Before the situation in the Naxal-affected areas got out of hand, the Raman Singh government intervened to calm tempers between the police and human rights activists.