THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Adivasi Gothra Mahasabha president C K Janu said here on Saturday that the sabha would launch a stir against the government protesting against the Chief Minister’s failure to implement the decisions taken to end the tribals’ ‘Nilpu samaram’.
Presiding over ‘Ooru vimochana campaign’ here on Saturday, the Adivasi Gothra Mahasabha president said that the government had failed to take action against a perosn who had encroached upon 3500 acres of land at Aralam farm in Kannur set apart for the tribals as part of the compromise formula following the Muthanga agitation.
The government was trying to protect the encroacher while CPM also sided with him, she alleged.
She said Gothramaha sabha was engaging noted social activist Medha Patkar to speak to the government to help settle the issue through dialogue.
Ambalavayal Harassment
Janu said that the police did not name the first accused in the FIR in the Ambalavayal harassment case. A police sub-inspector who is placed under suspension now had earlier been persuading the victim of the harassment case against naming the first accused, a youth from the vicinity, who had harassed her first.
According to the victim, the police told her that it if she did not press to name the first accused, he would marry her.
The second accused a woman, was not arrested citing that she had an ailing child.
Janu alleged that the police at Muthanga had sent even 10-month-old child and its mother to the jail.
She said vigilante groups will be set up in each tribal settlements and in case of police fail to act on their complaints the Tribal womenfolk will take law into their own hands if they find the officials fail to take action.
Speaking on the occasion, M Geethanandan, state coordinator of the sabha said that the third accused who had been staying with the second accused was harassing the 13-year- old girl. Police did not even mention the age of the little girl in the FIR, he said.
Geethanandan said they were launching the ‘’Ooru vimochana campaign’’ demanding to force out all those who trespass and stay with tribal families without marrying the girls officially. ‘’Some of them are staying with the tribal girls even when they had a family elsewhere. Cohabitation, may be legally allowed. But what the outsiders continue to do is keeping the girl in extra-marital affair,’’ he pointed out.
980 Unwed Mothers
Geethanandan said there were 980 unwed mothers in Wayanad. He wanted the ITDP to be dissolved and the fund meant for tribals to be handed over to the beneficiaries directly.