Andhra Pradesh - Visakhapatnam

‘Bhooporatam’: 26 CPI(M) workers arrested

VISAKHAPATNAM: For the second time in the second phase of ‘Bhooporatam’ (land struggle), the police arrested 26 CPI (M) activists on charge of instigating people to occupy vacant government land in Kancharapalem area on Monday.

With this, the number of arrested persons has gone up to 49. R. Bhagyalakshmi and four others, against whom cases were booked, are not yet arrested. The arrested persons included CPI (M) activists Rambabu, Sujata, Varahalu, Gopikrishna and Eswara Rao.

A large posse of police arrived at the Ajay Kallam Nagar in 38th ward and removed the dwellings put up by homeless people. The land in question extended over 60 acres in Survey Number 275 belonged to Simhachalam Devasthanam.

Condemning the arrests, CPI (M) district secretary Ch. Narsinga Rao said the arrests notwithstanding, the party would continue the land struggle and asked Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy to provide house-sites to all the eligible people as per the pre-poll promise made by him.

Earlier, at a roundtable conference organised by the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), leaders belonging to various trade unions supported the land struggle saying the homeless could occupy vacant government lands after failure of the authorities to provide them house-sites.

“The government machinery has expressed its helplessness that there is no vacant land at their disposal for distribution among the poor. We have identified the vacant lands. Hence, what’s the problem on their part to develop and distribute plots to the eligible people as per the pre and post-poll promise of the Chief Minister,” CITU district general secretary A. Ajay Sarma said.

Among others, B.B. Ganesh of Insurance Corporation Employees’ Union, V. Ramamohan Kumar of TNTUC, K.V.S.S.R. Murthy of GIC and P. Latchiraju of BSNL spoke.

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