The members of the Tamil Nadu Tribal Youth Federation (TNTYF) staged a demonstration in front of the Collectorate here on Wednesday demanding CBI probe into the drowning of five tribal workers of Kalvarayan hills in a lake near Kadapa in Andhra Pradesh.
They demanded a compensation of ₹ 25 lakh each to the family of the victims.
They also raised slogans demanding immediate steps to retrieve the tribal population from drought, poverty and unemployment problems; introduce the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS) in the tribal villages; proper implementation of the Forests Protection Act; creation of adequate jobs in the tribal villages to prevent the migration of local population; ensure proper irrigation facilities, power supply and loans.
S. Bala, State secretary of the DYFI, who inaugurated the agitation, said that the killing of innocent tribal workers is going unabated in Andhra Pradesh. More than 2,000 workers of Tamil Nadu are languishing in the Andhra Pradesh prisons and the whereabouts of hundreds of workers is not known.
The government has not taken any step for bringing to books the agents and the traders who lured the innocent workers for the jobs of felling the red sanders.
A. Bakkiaraj, State vice-president of the TNTYF, led the agitation, in which N. Praveenkumar, its State secretary, V. Ezhumalai, its State treasurer and others participated..
