No one knows when and how the Muslim Multani people, with origins in Pakistan, came to settle down in Keshavpatnam, Gundala, Yellammaguda and Jogipet in Ichoda and Sirikonda mandals in Adilabad district.
In fact, the existence of these peasants was hardly noticed until they emerged as timber smugglers in the 1970s. There are over 1,100 households of the community in the four villages with an estimated population of nearly 6,000.
A sizeable number of families depend on the income generated through sale of illegally felled teak trees.
No records
In the absence of records, it is assumed that the nomadic Multanis came to Ichoda in Telangana and Chikli in Kinwat taluka of Nanded district of Maharashtra when the Nizam resettled them around 1930.
The assumption is also based on the fact that there is no mention of the community in the list of castes and tribes compiled by Syed Siraj ul Hassan, then a Judge in Hyderabad High Court, in his book The Castes and Tribes of the H.E.H. The Nizam’s Dominions , published in 1920.
Poor literacy
The population of the Multanis would certainly have been much smaller when they arrived here and began tilling lands. As their numbers increased they made forest clearings for cultivation. Though the rate of increase in population is not known, it is quite rapid as deducted from the number of children that each family boasts of.
The literacy rate is dismal and so also is the incidence of employment, either government or private.
The steep increase in demand for teak-wood for use in housing provided them with an alternative source of income. Officials tried to rehabilitate the habitual offenders in the late 1990s but the effort yielded little success.
Published - February 26, 2018 11:48 pm IST
