North Lakhimpur: Crippled by age, ailments, poverty, and deprivation, two elderly women from rural Lakhimpur, Assam have been shuttling an 80 km distance almost twice a month to appear in court hearings for a case in which they were wrongly implicated.
For the past fourteen years, Laheswari Chutia (87) and Pratibha Chutia (71) have attended court sessions in North Lakhimpur, seeking acquittal for a case they knew nothing about.
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This situation reflects the state’s apathy and law enforcement’s insularity in delivering justice within a society that has always held the elderly in high regard.
On June 16, 2011, police picked up Laheswari Chutia and Pratibha Chutia in Chawuldhowa, Lakhimpur district, while they were traveling in a bus from Ghilamora to North Lakhimpur to visit relatives.
At the time of their arrest, a massive crowd blocked NH-15, protesting the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC)’s construction of the 2000 MW Subansiri Lower Hydroelectric Power dam at Gerukamukh in Assam. As the bus got stuck in the traffic congestion for hours, Laheswari and Pratibha Chutia got down from it and rested under a wayside tree. All of a sudden, a team of police personnel arrived on that spot and randomly picked them up and took them to a police vehicle before they could realise the situation.Â
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The police took them 35 km away to North Lakhimpur Police Station, where they learned of their arrest for leading an anti-dam demonstration campaign. Police threw Laheswari and Pratibha Chutia into jail the next day in North Lakhimpur, where they remained as undertrial detainees for six months before their release on bail. Since then, they have been appearing in court hearings in North Lakhimpur in the last fourteen years for Case No. GR 643/2012 that accuses them as hardcore leaders of the anti-dam movement. Police charged both elderly women under Sections 120(B), 149, 435, 429, and 323 of the IPC.
Residents of Mornoi-Bebejia Kathgaon in Ghilamora of Lakhimpur district Laheswari Chutia is a cancer patient with disability living a life of abject poverty in a tattered house. She has cases registered against her at Chawuldhowa Police Outpost, North Lakhimpur Police Station, Laluk Police Station, Bihpuria Police Station, Narayanpur Police Station and Simaluguri Police Outpost in Lakhimpur district which are in fact miles apart in distance. With all these challenges Laheswari Chutia has been attending court sessions almost every month in the last fourteen years without any lenience or exemption from personal appearance due to her cancer, disability and octogenarian stature. As said by Pratibha Chutia, the other accused, they appear before the magistrate on every date for the cases only to give their presence and sign attendance.
Pratibha Chutia too, in this decade and half long legal battle is the other elderly woman who also has the same ordeal to defend herself to charges she never committed. Recalling their continued hardship shuttling the 80 km distance between their village and the judicial court in North Lakhimpur, Pratibha Chutia says that if they fail to appear before the magistrate on occasion, police from Ghilamora Police Station instantly issue arrest warrants, followed by intimidation.
The most lamentable part of their suffering stems from how the cases of other leaders who spearheaded the anti-dam agitation against NHPC’s SLHEP plant at Gerukamukh developed from 2011 onwards. While these two old women have been attending court summons, often accompanied by arrest warrants for failing to appear on dates in the last fourteen years, the leadership of that anti-dam movement has been enjoying a better life by virtue of their change of stance over the issue. Police charged more than forty other individuals for the anti-dam movement that rocked Assam in 2011.
The agitation saw suspension of work at the SLHEP dam site at Gerukamukh for several years from December 2011 until its resumption in October 2019 following clearance by the National Green Tribunal. The SLHEP will commission from mid-June this year.
The Krishak Mukti Sangram Parichad (KMSS) led the anti-dam agitation against NHPC’s SLHEP plant, and various student organizations like AASU, TMPK, AJYCP, and others joined them. Most of the leaders of these organizations that led the anti-dam protests have become elected representatives and stakeholders of various political power structures over the years. They, too, seem insular to the meaningless suffering faced by these two old women due to the movement that was once led by their organizations.
What Laheswari Chutia and Pratibha Chutia wish now is a speedy redressal of their trial and acquittal for the charges they never committed. However, even after their acquittal, the biggest question remains: will the state ever compensate these two victims for their losses?
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