The Communist Party of India (Marxist) will lead the fight till a CBI inquiry is ordered into the killing of 20 woodcutters in Sesachalam forests of Andhra Pradesh, said party’s State secretary G.Ramakrishnan.
Slamming the Andhra Pradesh Forest Minister’s justification of the killings, Mr. Ramakrishnan, who led a hunger strike here on Thursday demanding the CBI probe, said that Andhra Pradesh had failed to act against red sanders mafia, but went after poor tribals.
“It was a fake encounter by all means, and the policemen and their higher-ups should be tried for murder and sacked from service,” he said.
In the same vein, Mr.Ramakrishnan criticised the failure of the Tamil Nadu government in prevailing upon the Centre to order a CBI inquiry. A mere relief would not suffice as the families that had lost their lone bread-winners. The families should be given a government job each, Mr. Ramakrishnan demanded. There was an increasing out-migration among educated unemployed youth to Erode, Tirupur, Bengaluru or Mumbai in search of employment as the government here has failed to generate local employment opportunities for the poor, he charged.
Referring to the Vachathi atrocities of 1992, Mr.Ramakrishnan said it was the two-decade long fight by the CPI(M) that resulted in justice to the Malayali tribals. “The Communist movement brought it [Vachathi atrocities] to light and moved the High Court to order a CBI inquiry back then.” The two mainstream parties had failed the Dalits and tribals and it was the CPI(M) that had stood by them, Mr.Ramakrishnan said.
