Tribal farmers set out to protest at CM KCR's house, arrested
Tribal farmers along with women staging dharna seeking resolution of podu land issues before the Mulkalpalli police station in Kothagudem district on Monday
Kothagudem: A large number of tribal farmers from the district on Monday set out to protest at Chief Minister K Chandrashekar's resident Pragathi Bhavan in Hyderabad against forest officials' atrocities and to demand permanent solution to the podu land issue.
The podu land farmers have been facing harassment by the forest officials who snatch away their lands stating that it belong the forest. Many times forest officials beat the farmers working on their farms.
In the recent incident, forest officials beat tribal women in Chadrugonda mandal in Kothagudem district. They filed complaint against the forest officials at Chandragonda police station on Saturday. Fed up with continuous harassment from forest officials, the tribal farmers, including women, started their padayatra from the Ramannagudem village under Aswaraopet mandal.
When the police got the wind about the protest march, swung into action and obstructed the padayatra and arrested the tribal farmers and shifted them to Mulkalpalli police station in the district.
When the former MLA Tati Venkateswarlu, who recently joined Congress party from the TRS, learned about the incident, rushed to Mukalpalli police station along with Congress workers and stopped the police from taking protesting farmers into custody.
He staged dharna along with farmers before the police station seeking solution to the podu land issue.
The dharna continued for five hours. At around 3 pm Additional Collector K Venkateswarlu arrived and interacted with the tribal farmers. He assured farmers of addressing the issues before the Saturday. He assured farmers of conducting a joint survey with forest and revenue officers on their lands.
After the assurance, the tribal farmers withdrew the protest and returned their homes.