SALEM: Various tribal and social groups in southern states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerakla and Andhra Pradesh have decided to forge a common forum to take up the issue of Suriyur village, from where the forest officials ‘forcefully’ evicted its people recently citing the reason that the village was falling within the jurisdiction of reserve forests.
A three-member team from National Adivasi Alliance and National Advasi Andolan from Karnataka and Tribal Association for Fifth Schedule Campaign recently visited the village and held an interaction with the displaced people of Suriyur. The convener of the National Adivasi Alliance V. S. Roy David told The Hindu that the officials of Department of Forest in Salem were unaware of the fact that forest dwellers and adivasis had every right to live in their villages and should not be evicted. (The provisons of the Scheduled Tribe and Forest Dwellers Act (Recognition of Forest Rights) 2006 stipulates that no one, either a tribal or a forest dweller, who has been living in forest lands prior to Dec 13, 2005, should not be evicted.)
Rights violation
It was a blatant human rights violation and an inhuman act to evict them forcefully. Villagers should be permitted to resettle in their native village in which they have been living for generations, he added.
President, National Adivasi Andolan J. P. Raju claimed that people in Suriyur had been living, tilling and raising crops for many years.
Seventeen wells, well grown coconut and palmyrah trees and demolished houses are the mute witnesses to the habitation that once flourished in the village, he pointed out. K. Muthappa of Tribal Organisations in Coorg in Karnataka said that the issue would be taken at the national forum of tribal groups so that the future plans for struggle could be chalked out. The activists claimed that they would meet the Chief Minister and Prime Minister and submit petitions.
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