The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : It’s State terrorism, says Medha Patkar

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Saturday, Dec 27, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

It’s State terrorism, says Medha Patkar

Staff Reporter

Environmentalist visits Kakinada Special Economic Zone

’State ignoring court orders to promote real estate’
‘Government fraudulently acquiring lands’

Medha Patkar

Kakinada: Noted environmentalist Medha Patkar called upon the Andhra Pradesh Government to think whether it wanted to proceed in the direction of Nandigram from where the TATA Group shifted its small car project due to the people’s uprising or face similar consequences with regard to Kakinada Special Economic Zone.

The State Human Rights Commission had passed several interim orders against violation of human rights in the process of acquiring land for the KSEZ but the government has ignored them in its apparent bid to promote real estate business. The National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM) would not allow the Government to deprive the people of their rights to life and livelihood, Ms. Patkar asserted.

Addressing a press conference here on Friday before visiting the KSEZ area, Ms. Patkar said that the Government was either deploying fraudulent means or brute force to snatch agricultural lands, which is unacceptable in the existing constitutional framework.

Red carpet welcome

The organisations fighting against the KSEZ have pleaded to the Chief Minister to give them a truthful and honest hearing but he was least bothered about their plight. Moreover, he has thrown all the constitutional norms to winds in rolling out the red carpet to industrialists. The displacement of people in name of KSEZ is unjustifiable, not to speak of the process of land acquisition which is glaringly illegal, she said.

Ms. Patkar said the United Progressive Alliance is divided on the SEZ policy but the Commerce Ministry is pushing it to the extent possible. Industrialisation will go on even if there were no SEZ, which are being registered as `foreign territories’ with a plethora of tax concessions.

The NAPM would extent is full support to the struggle against KSEZ and all other projects which have become means to exploit people who have been hitherto militant but not violent. It is nothing but State terrorism, she added.

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