Podu cultivators and forest staff clash over rights on podu lands

ADILABAD: With the onset of rains, the podu land issue created a tense situation in the erstwhile Adilabad district and people feel that it is high time the state government intervened and resolved the issue.

In the latest clash between forest officials and tribals, two women forest staff and eight adivasi women were injured over the podu lands issue at Koya Poshaguda in Dandepalli mandal of Mancherial district on Friday.

Forest officials booked cases against seven adivasi women under relevant sections. Teams of police and forest staff were deployed there to remove the huts and take the cultivators into their custody. Vehicles were kept ready to shift them.

The teams used ropes to cordon off the adivasi podu cultivators and arrest them. Some of these cultivators had earlier been arrested and then released on bail a few days ago.

The forest and police teams attempted to prevent the people from cultivating lands and take the land into their custody but the agitators strongly resisted these efforts. Subsequently, the forest staff withdrew from the lands at night on July 7.

Adivasi women alleged that the forest staff physically harassed them after taking them into custody. Officials forced them to abandon their podu cultivation and even women forest staff allegedly attacked them physically and behaved in an inhuman manner.

The videos of the clash went viral on social media, in which forest staff were seen dragging an adivasi woman on the ground while her clothes got off her body.

The Thudum Debba Adilabad district president Godam Ganesh flayed the forest staff for their inhuman treatment of the adivasi women fighting for pattas to the podu lands they have been cultivating for long. He said the state government should intervene and issue pattas to the podu lands.

Out of a total of eight huts erected near a canal, six were removed. Two huts remained there on the outskirts of the Koya Poshagudem. 

The forest staff used lathis to chase away the podu cultivators from the lands and dismantled the huts they erected there.

It is said that the podu cultivators used red chili powder to chase away the forest staff and protect themselves. “The cultivators chased the forest staff with bamboo sticks on the outskirts of Koya Poshagudem. All the injured women cultivators and women forest staff were undergoing treatment,” officials said.

Forest officials say these were forest lands and come under the Kawal Tiger Reserve while the cultivators say they have been cultivating these lands since 2002.

The stakeholders say the state government should intervene and resolve the podu land issue by announcing a clear policy on thisissue.

What is required is of identifying the land --whether it is forest land or revenue land-- and for how many years these people cultivated the lands.

Families of podu land cultivators obstructed the jeeps when forest staff arrested seven adivasi women and took them to the forest office of Thallapet.

The agitators staged a protest in front of the forest office demanding immediate release of the arrested women. The forest staff released the women after producing them before the local tahsildar officer.

The Thudum Debba has given a call for an ‘erstwhile Adilabad district bandh’ on July 11 in protest against the forest officials’ attacks on adivasis women.