Tribal organizations protest against anti-Naxal operation in Orissa

BHUBANESHWAR - Tribal organizations under the banner of the Akhil Bharatiya Krantikari Adivasi Mahasabha (ABKAM) and the Basti Surkshya Mancha have staged a protest rally in Bhubaneswar, demanding cessation of the on-going anti Naxal operation.

The protesting tribals apprehended that the operation is going to be fatal to innocent tribals dwelling in the vicinity of forests.

However, Biswaroop Kanungo, adviser to the Akhil Bharatiya Krantikari Adivasi Mahasabha, noted that protest against the operation doesn’t mean that they are favouring the politics of the Maoists.

“We are opposing the Green Hunt. We are opposing it because the Indian Government is declaring war against its own people. Whether they are the Maoists or the tribals, or the struggling people they are not outsiders, they are not foreign enemies,” Kanungo said.

“When we are opposing the Green Hunt, that doesn’t mean that indirectly we are supporting the politics of the Maoists. We may disagree with the policies of the Maoists, but we do not agree with the repression or the violence of corporate and state against its own people,” he added.

Kanungo also alleged that the government is trying to displace the poor tribals from their land in the name of the Maoists.

“Police and security forces in the guise of curbing the Maoist resort to acts of humiliating the poor tribals and even torture them,” he said.

Sandhyarani, one of the tribal women protestors, contended that the hostile attitude of the police has left them with no other option to redress their grievances.

“We want that the way they attack on us calling us Maoists must stop. There is no use of going to the police since the police attack us. So whom do we trust? We can’t trust anybody, thus we have come to protest here,” opined Sandhyarani.(ANI)