Forest department nursed grudge against tribals: Rights organisations

Mancherial: Members of Tudum Debba, a tribal rights organisation and various tribal rights bodies staged a rasta-roko on Dandepally-Mancherial road, condemning the ‘indifference attitude’ of forest officials in evacuating tribals at Koya Pochagudem, in Dandepalli mandal centre on Monday.

The leaders of the organizations alleged that the officials of the forest department were coercively evacuating the tribals from a place on the outskirts of Koya Pochagudam. They charged that the tribal women who were arrested and housed in a jail were subjected to torture by the staffers of the forest department for erecting sheds in a piece of land. A woman was inhumanly dragged by the staffers, they accused.

The protesters regretted that the issue was put on cold storage even after the organisations represented the Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA)-Utnoor Project Officer seeking his intervention. The officials of the forest department nursed a grudge against the gullible tribals and were hatching a conspiracy to send them out from the forest lands.

The agitating leaders were arrested and shifted to a police station in Dandepalli mandal centre. The participants of a similar protest held in Utnoor mandal centre were also detained. Maipathi Arun Kumar, state working president of Tudum Debba condemned the arrests and demanded the government to release the leaders at the earliest.