Kollam: Over 35 tribal families under Adivasi Dalit Munnetta Samithi (ADMS) have encroached and set up shacks in the revenue land at Malapathur in Veliyam in the wee hours of Wednesday. The revenue authorities including the police later shifted the protesters, mostly women, to the Kottarakkara police station where a meeting with the Kollam district collector has been scheduled. They have been pacified assuring that the issue would be addressed after the elections. The land was allegedly grabbed by a quarry mafia and the local residents have been protesting there for the past several years.
Meanwhile, the environmentalists allege the move to be in favour of the quarry lobby. The Kollam land board had given direction to acquire the disputed land back after it was reclassified as government property. However, no action has been taken by the authorities apparently supporting the mafia, they allege. The FIR was registered by the Kollam vigilance regarding the land grab in November 2017 but has not yet been submitted before the court.
The protesters raised their demand to cancel the permits sanctioned to the quarry unit functioning in Veliyam panchayat claiming it as a threat to environment and human life.
A commission appointed by the High Court had also found the industry using a road which is just 4.5 meters in width, against the mandate as per the Hazard Occupancy Law. The tipper lorries plying through the road is a potential threat to the school children who have to share the same narrow road, it is alleged.
The area was also a natural habitat of peacocks which has been swept away with the functioning of the quarry.
