The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : CPI (M) members, residents held for protest

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Tuesday, Jan 06, 2009
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

CPI (M) members, residents held for protest

Special Correspondent

They blocked traffic, opposing government’s drive against encroachments

— Photo:A. Muralitharan

In protest: Residents of southern suburbs and members of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) along Grand Southern Trunk Road in Tambaram on Monday.

TAMBARAM: More than 500 persons living in different places in the southern suburbs of Chennai and members of Communist Party of India (Marxist) were arrested on Monday morning when they sat on Grand Southern Trunk Road in Tambaram as part of a State-wide protest opposing the State government’s drive against encroachments.

Several hundred persons who feared displacement during the on-going government’s drive against encroachments took part in a meeting organised by the CPI (M), led by Bhima Rao, its secretary of the South Chennai unit of the party.

They had gathered outside the office of Tambaram Tahsildar, and soon after a public meeting and after raising slogans, they gathered on GST Road, opposite Madras Special Economic Zone – Special Economic Zone, surprising the strong police contingent.

Traffic came to a halt, but the police acted swiftly by allowing two-way flow of traffic on one carriageway as the other was blocked by protestors. Soon, the protestors were taken in police vehicles and lodged at a private marriage hall.

The party men said that the drive against encroachments was not only unjust but also against government policy and certain provisions that had guaranteed housing rights, especially to landless and homeless poor living on government property for a certain period of time.

Depriving them of housing rights based on norms created during the British days was unfair, the party members said. The land in which poor families have built should be re-classified and ‘pattas’ distributed to them, they said, adding that those families whose houses were demolished during the recent drive against encroachments should immediately be provided with alternate housing sites.

In Tambaram Taluk alone, the extent of land occupied by the landless and homeless poor was negligible compared to the occupation of government land by the private sector.

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