Staff Reporter
| Nainamkonam residents to boycott polls |
Thiruvananthapuram: As many as 400 Dalit and landless families in the Nainamkonam colony on the Thiruvananthapuram-Kollam border will boycott the forthcoming Assembly elections in protest against the forcible eviction and reign of terror unleashed on them by `landsharks' and the police.
Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, action council leaders said both the ruling and opposition parties had failed to check the systematic violation of human rights in the colony.
They alleged that the Government was trying to legitimise the terror tactics of the land mafia that had ousted them from the land they had been occupying for generations.
Chairman, Bhoosamara Munnani, K.K.S. Das said the victims were evicted on the basis of an order obtained by misleading the court and denied entry into their land.
He said hundreds of residents were arrested on trumped-up charges and tortured in police custody.
The action council also accused the Government of not honouring its commitment to recognise their possession rights and issue title deeds for the permanent residents of the colony.
Dalit organisations and progressive, democratic forces all over the State will come together to organise a People's Vigil March to the colony on April 9. Mr. Das said the march would seek to highlight the police excesses on the dispossessed people and the suppression of human rights.
The march will be preceded by a convention at Kallambalam. The meeting will discuss a strategy to extend the Nainamkonam agitation to the State-level.
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"Ours is a battle not for wealth or for power.
It is a battle for freedom. It is a battle for the reclamation of human personality."
- Dr BR Ambedkar
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