Mysuru: Resuming their agitation, Diddalli tribals in Kodagu district silently returned to the reserve forest area they were evicted from December last year and rebuilt their huts there late Tuesday night right under the nose of the police, who were asleep in a school nearby.
Accusing the government of failing to meet their demands, the angry tribals threatened to go on a mass nude protest if the officials again tried to evict them.
"This time if the government tries to evict us we will go on a mass nude march. Let them do a lathicharge, kill us or bury us, we are ready to face anything. We will either live here or die here, but we will not move an inch," declared tribal leader Muththamma, whose nude march to protest their eviction from the reserve forest a few months ago had gone viral on social media in December.
"It has been five months, but all they have done is give us some plastic sheets for tents, and 15 kgs of rice a week for each family for about two months. We are living on the footpaths in tiny camps with small children, braving the heat and rain. They have built only ten toilets and five bathrooms for 611 families which comprise of 2500 people," she deplored.
The tribals , who claim they were treated as bonded labourers in plantations in Kodagu, are demanding housing sites and land for farming, but with the government granting them neither, seem unwilling to wait any longer for their demands to be met.
"Although ministers have visited us and seen us living in such inhuman conditions, they have only identified land for housing sites when we want farmlands and sites together in one place. And now they are all set to demolish our plastic tents," Muththamma said.
Meanwhile, Kodagu SP, P Rajendra Prasad said the Virajpet RFO had filed a case against the tribals, who had stopped the police from evicting them.
