Soni Sori (born c. 1975[2]) is an Adivasi school teacher turned political leader of Aam Aadmi Party in Sameli village of Dantewada in south Bastar, Chhattisgarh, India.

[4][5] After release from prison, Sori began campaigning for the rights of those caught up in the conflict between Maoist insurgents and the government, in particular criticising police violence against tribespeople in the region.

[3] Sori is a member of Aam Aadmi Party on whose ticket she unsuccessfully contested the 2014 general elections from Bastar, but lost to Dinesh Kashyap of the BJP.

[2][12] Soni Sori attended a nursing college, but dropped out to work as a warden of a girls' residential school in the Jabeli village.

[14] In July 2010, warrants were first issued against Soni, along with her husband and nephew, for an attack on a local Indian National Congress leader, Avdesh Gautam.

[15] The Indian Express wrote that "evidence suggests both Sori and Futane were not involved in the attack", but that SRP Kalluri used the charges to pressure them to become informers.

Earlier, leaked diplomatic cables had also said that the Essar Group pays a significant amount of protection money to Maoists to safeguard its operations in the state.

[citation needed] The police stated the steel company was paying the Maoists to buy peace and safeguard its iron ore slurry pipeline from Dantewada.

[2] According to the police, along with her nephew Lingaram Kodopi, Sori was slated to collect ₹ 1.5 million from Essar contractor B K Lala at Palnar weekly market in Dantewada on 9 September.

The police stated they arrested Lala and Kodopi from the bazaar, but due to chaos in the market, Sori gave them the slip.

[17] On 10 September 2011, Ankit Garg, SP, Dantewada announced the arrests of Essar contractor B K Lala and Maoist conduit Lingaram Kodapi (Sori's nephew).

The police, Garg said, arrested them on 9 September when Lala was handing over ₹ 1.5 million to Kodapi at Palnar market, while Sori and Maoist commanders Vinod and Bhadru "escaped" from the spot.

[9] On 3 October 2011, Chhattisgarh Police raided house of Kavita Srivastava, general secretary of People's Union for Civil Liberties, Rajasthan division in search of Sori but failed.

[17][20] After her arrest, on the same day, she was produced before Saket (Delhi) Sessions Court before a Duty Magistrate and was sent to judicial custody.

[30] Gautam, the Indian National Congress leader whose house was attacked in July 2010, said that he felt sorry for her as human rights activists were using her and this had made the case more complex.

[24] A group of 250 activists and intellectuals wrote to Prime Minister Singh on 30 April expressing concern over Sori's "rapidly deteriorating" condition in prison and demanding that she receive immediate medical attention.

She was found to be suffering from severe blisters in her genital area, and a government inquiry was instituted to learn why the hospital had initially refused her.

[19] Rahul Pandita of OPEN wrote that "there is good reason to believe that the stories in circulation about her are a complex web of lies and falsehood systematically spread over the past two years by the state machinery", and compared the case to George Orwell's novel 1984.

[15] The Indian Express wrote of the case that "Sori's story over the past two years is that of a woman who was exploited both by the police and the Maoists—some would say she let them use her—and now by her activist friends.

[42] Soni Sori returned to Chhattisgarh on 11 March after undergoing treatment for injuries caused on her face by an acid attack.