CPI(M) State secretary P. Madhu and 11 others were taken into preventive custody when they agitated in support of displaced Dalits in Devarapalli village, near Parchur, on Tuesday.
A posse of police personnel surrounded the village from all sides and detained the CPI(M) leaders and the Dalit activists as they organised a meeting in the village defying prohibitory orders to express solidarity with 39 Dalit families, who had been evicted from 22 acres of ‘Kunta Poramboke’ land enjoyed by them for decades on the pretext of restoring watercourses in the village.
Judicial probe sought
The agitators, including CPI(M) State Secretariat member Y.V.Rao and its district secretary P. Anjaneyulu, were taken into custody to prevent a law and order problem in the village, said Prakasam Superintendent of Police B.Satya Yesu Babu.
Asserting that his party would stand by the Dalits and facilitate growing of crops by them during this kharif season at any cost, Mr. Madhu urged the Chandrababu Naidu government to order a judicial probe into alleged irregularities in the implementation of the ‘Neeru Pragathi’ scheme.
Mr. Madhu, who led a fact-finding team, said the ruling TDP men had backed by local MLA Y. Sambasiva Rao had turned the scheme into a money spinning racket by digging fine silt even from land other than the water bodies not allotted to them and displacing Dalits from the land holdings in Parchur and other mandals allegedly in collusion with local officials.
“The stir is just the beginning of a large movement to reclaim the land rights of Dalits displaced in Parchur and other mandals,” Mr. Madhu said, adding it was the voiceless Dalits who had held 95% of all such land usurped on the pretext of restoring water bodies.
According to his information, the contractor concerned had drawn ₹6.80 lakh without actually digging the displaced Dalits’ land in Devarapalli.
