The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : All for land, running from pillar to post

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Wednesday, May 23, 2007
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

All for land, running from pillar to post

Special Correspondent

HER TALE OF WOES: Akkamma of Prakasam district at a public hearing in Hyderabad on Sunday.

HYDERABAD: Akkamma of Regula Chelaka village in Khammam district does not remember her age. But all she swears is that her husband's life ebbed away as he kept running from pillar to post, seeking his rights over 17 acres of land that was grabbed by others.

For his land in Kappa Pahadu village of Ibrahimpatnam mandal in Ranga Reddy district, Bydla Jangaiah and 71 others have been doing the rounds of just about every court in the country. Their 99.16 acres was occupied allegedly by Bucchi Reddy alias Sudarshan Reddy. "My case has gone to the Supreme Court. But we continue to be beaten up by someone or the other, including police. Even on Monday, after CPI(M) leader B.V. Raghavulu symbolically tilled our land, we were arrested," he told a stunned jury.

The public hearing organised outside Indira Park here on Tuesday by the Dalit Bahujan Shramik Union (DBSU) dealt with 14 similar cases of denying rights over land Dalits had been tilling for several decades.

Later in the day, former IAS officer K.R. Venugopal released the second Andhra Pradesh Social Watch Report-2007 with the theme `Rekindling hope? Access, retention, development of land — a Dalit perspective.'

Father Pallithanam, coordinator of the report, said in a majority of the cases, courts had ruled in favour of the poor. The DBSU was demanding resurvey and redistribution of three acres to each Dalit family, action against landlords who occupied their lands, implementation of 1/70 and 9/77 land-related Acts and issues of pattas to Dalits cultivating Government lands.

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