The following is based on a communication sent by the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders and other UN experts to the Government of India on 26 March 2025. The communication remained confidential for 60 days before being made public, giving the Government time to reply. Regrettably, the Government did not reply within this timeframe. If a reply is received, it will be posted on the UN Special Procedures communications database.
At the time of publication, three of the five individuals who had been arrested in relation to the investigation into the death of Jagabar Ali were placed in preventive detention under the Tamil Nadu Goondas Act (1982), while the other two were released on bail after the expiry of the statutory limit for investigation and filing a chargesheet. The investigation by the Crime Branch – Crime Investigation Department (CB-CID) is still ongoing. The stone quarries which Jagabar Ali had spoken out against have remained sealed and non-functional.
To date, Jagabar Ali’s family members have not been granted protection despite filing an application for Witness Protection in January 2025.
This is a shorter version of the original communication.
BACKGROUND
Topic: the death of environmental human rights defender Mr. Jagabar Ali at Thirumayam, Pudukottai District, Tamil Nadu, on 17 January 2025.
Mr. Jagabar Ali was an environmental human rights defender, an All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) functionary in the Pudukkottai district, Tamil Nadu, and secretary of the Union Minority Division in the AIDMK. He advocated against stone quarries and mining activities operating on expired licenses in the Thirumayam area. It has been reported that due to his environmental rights work, Mr. Jagabar Ali had faced intimidation and death threats in the past.
ALLEGATIONS
On 14 November 2018, the company RR Crusher obtained a mining licence and began operating stone quarries in the Pudokkottai district, Tamil Nadu. Mining companies RR Sand Unit 1 and RR Sand Unit 2, which have the same owner, obtained similar licences on 30 August 2017 and 14 November 2018 respectively. The licences of RR Crusher and RR Sand Unit 2 expired on 13 November 2023 and the licence of RR Sand Unit 1 on 29 August 2022. Nonetheless, the companies reportedly continued to extract minerals until 7 February 2025, when the quarries were closed due to pressure from local organisations and human rights defenders following the death of Mr. Jagabar Ali.
On 4 January 2023 and 31 January 2023, Mr. Jagabar Ali filed two complaints regarding the illegal mining with the Pudukkottai District Collector, the State Mineral Resources Department, the Thirumayam Tahsildar Land Revenue Office, the State Geology and Mining Department, and the Superintendent of the Pudokkottai District Police. The environmental human rights defender also filed a case with the Madurai High Court Bench of the Madras High Court which, on 5 September 2023, granted an order for an investigation to be carried out into the alleged illegal operation of the stone quarries. The authorities are not believed to have implemented the High Court’s order or to have further investigated Mr. Jagabar Ali’s complaints.
On 15 June 2024, Mr. Jagabar Ali reportedly submitted a memorandum to the Superintendent of Police in the Pudukkottai district stating that he was receiving death threats and seeking protection. Several of these threats were allegedly made by family members of the owners of the company RR Crusher. This complaint does not appear to have been investigated by the authorities and no measures were taken to protect Mr. Ali from the alleged perpetrators.
On 10 January 2025, Mr. Ali filed a subsequent complaint with the Tahsildar Land Revenue Office in the Pudukkottai district seeking legal action against and the seizure of assets belonging to RR Crusher, RR Sand Unit 1, RR Sand Unit 2 and other mining companies operating in the area. In the complaint, the environmental human rights defender requested that such legal action be taken to recover compensation for alleged unpaid fines previously issued to the companies by the Indian Government for the excessive mining of minerals beyond the licences granted. Mr. Ali accused the companies of operating in both government-recognised quarries and private land measuring a total area of more than 30 acres.
According to Mr. Jagabar Ali’s complaint, which he supported with detailed land records, documents and images related to stockyards, the companies were operating on a 24-hour basis, employing more than 150 workers, operating heavy machinery, and extracting on average 1,800 units of residue every day. These units were then allegedly illegally stored on the mining sites. The environmental human rights defender’s calculations estimated that the companies have sold 840 cores Indian rupees worth of the minerals since the expiration of their licences and reportedly caused irreparable damage and pollution to the surrounding environment and villages including water supply channels. Mr. Ali further alleged that such illegal activities were only permitted to take place because the Thirumayam Taluk Level Task Force, constituted for the prevention of illegal mining and transportation of minerals based on the orders of the Madras High Court on 5 November 2009, had not carried out its duties.
On the same date, Mr. Jagabar Ali gave an interview in which he stated that his environmental activism to date had brought him into conflict with the mining companies operating in the area as well as with officials employed in State departments and law enforcement agencies. He also announced in this interview that, on 17 January 2025, he planned to hold a protest against the operation of the stone quarries. This interview was made available online.
On 17 January 2025, the date that Mr. Jagabar Ali was set to hold his protest, his motorbike was hit by a tipper lorry which was being driven from the opposite direction. As a result of the incident, Mr. Jagabar Ali was knocked from his vehicle into a ditch at the side of the road. The environmental human rights defender sustained tire marks on his abdomen, right arm and both legs, fractured ribs, two shattered kidneys, and a torn urinary bladder amongst other injuries which proved fatal. When Mr. Ali’s family arrived at the scene, all records on his phone from that day had allegedly been erased. The phone was submitted as evidence to the police authorities.
Following Mr. Jagabar Ali’s death, the Thirumayam Police initially categorized the incident as a road accident. Following public pressure, on 18 January 2025 – over 24 hours after the death of the environmental human rights defender – the police registered a First Information Report (FIR) under section 194(1) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita Criminal Code categorizing the event as an affray. This was later amended to sections 3(5), 61(2), 103 and 191(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita categorizing the incident as pre-meditated murder. On 21 January 2025, the investigation was transferred to the Crime Branch – Crime Investigation Department (CB-CID).
During the period between the death of Mr. Ali and the registration of the FIR, the environmental human rights defender’s body was kept at the Thirumayam Government Hospital mortuary, which reportedly could not provide the required freezer facilities to preserve the body. After approximately three hours, the family arranged for such facilities at their own expense. After 4 p.m. on 18 January 2025, a postmortem was carried out on the environmental human rights defenders’ body at the same location, reportedly without the presence of a forensic expert and without following forensic protocols and guidelines set out by the Madras High Court in Arun Swaminathan v. The Principal Secretary W.P.(MD) Case No. 78, 2019. The guidelines set out in this case specify that postmortems should be videographed, which allegedly the postmortem of Mr. Jagabar Ali’s body was not.
The results of this postmortem showed that Mr. Ali had died from a hemorrhage as a result of multi-organ injuries. The postmortem report was not made available to the family until 26 January 2025 and did not follow the postmortem template set out by the National Human Rights Commission India. A human rights organisation filed a request with the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court on behalf of the environmental human rights defender’s family, requesting a second postmortem including an X-ray and CT scan. On 30 January 2025, the High Court passed an order directing an X-Ray of the body to be conducted before 31 January 2025 at Pudukottai Government Medical College Hospital, which is located 20 kilometres from Thirumayam Government Hospital and has a separate Department of Forensic medicine. Mr. Ali’s body was then exhumed, as the burial had already taken place, and the postmortem report was submitted to police authorities.
It is unclear why the environmental human rights defender’s body was not transferred to the Pudukottai Government Medical College Hospital as soon as the authorities discovered that the Thirumayam Government Hospital mortuary could not provide the required freezer facilities to preserve the body or an adequately qualified professional to carry out the postmortem.
To date, five individuals allegedly linked to the company RR Crusher have been arrested in relation to the investigation into the death of Mr. Jagabar Ali, reportedly charged with murder and criminal conspiracy. On 21 January 2025, an inspection of the quarries in question was also initiated.
On 27 January 2025, Mr. Ali’s family filed a Witness Protection Application under the Witness Protection Scheme 2018 as they have reportedly been receiving significant threats and fear for their safety.
CONCERNS
In the communication, we express deep concern regarding the death of Mr. Jagabar Ali, which we fear may have been carried out intentionally in order to halt his work in defense of human rights and the environment. We are particularly concerned that, despite Mr. Ali having alerted the authorities about the fact that he was receiving death threats, the authorities appear not to have taken any action to further investigate these threats or provide the environmental human rights defender with the required protection measures. If confirmed, the allegations would appear to contravene, among other norms, the State’s duty to protect the right to life, which requires States parties to take special measures of protection towards persons in vulnerable situations whose lives have been placed at particular risk because of specific threats or pre-existing patterns of violence (CCPR/C/GC/36, paragraph 23). Furthermore, we stress our concerns about the chilling effect of the potential intentional killing of Mr. Jagabar Ali and the lack of protection and adequate investigation, on individuals, including journalists, media workers and human rights defenders, who wish to express themselves, demonstrate peacefully, and participate in public and political life, leading to self-censorship.
Furthermore, we are concerned that the failure to preserve Mr. Jagabar Ali’s body and carry out an adequate postmortem in a timely manner may have interfered with the upcoming criminal case’s evidence. If true, this would be in violation of due process and would raise serious questions over the impartiality of the investigation into the death of the human rights defender.
While we welcome the initiation of a criminal investigation by the CB-CID into the death of Mr. Jagabar Ali, we would like to remind the Indian Government that such an investigation must be thorough, prompt, independent, impartial and in compliance with international standards, in particular the UN Principles for the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-Legal, Summary and Arbitrary Executions, and the Revised United Nations Manual on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-Legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions (the Minnesota Protocol on the Investigation of a Potentially Unlawful Death (2016)). We are additionally deeply concerned about the lack of precautions taken to ensure the safety of Mr. Ali’s family.
