Displaced Orissa villagers get to meet Patnaik

BHUBANESWAR - Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik Tuesday gave a chance to a group of displaced villagers to meet him in Orissa secretariat after they launched a protest and some of them even attempted to commit suicide.

“Five people represented by the villagers met the chief minister in the evening,” an official of the chief minister’s office told IANS.

The villagers also called off their strike and promised to return home after Patnaik assured them to extend all necessary government help, he said.

Hundreds of men and women from Narayanpatna and Bandhugaon area of Koraput district were protesting here since Saturday to draw the attention of the government to their problems.

The residents say they have been living under immense hardship for more than a year after a local tribal outfit took away their lands and destroyed their homes.

Trouble began after tribals under the banner of Chasi Mulia Adivasi Sangha (Peasants, Labourers and Tribals Association) forcibly occupied hundreds of acres of farmland and homes in the region by hoisting red flags on the lands.

The tribals claim they were the owners of the lands which others had been cultivating for decades.

Police said the Chasi Mulia Adivasi Sangha (CMAS) is backed by Maoists who have a strong presence in the region. CMAS members forcibly displaced the villagers, including some local people’s representatives, mainly for not supporting the activities of the Sangha in the region, police said.

Koraput District Collector R.P. Patil said some 500 families were displaced in the region, but 300 had already returned home.

But the protesters refute these claims and say all measures have only been on paper. They say more than 2,000 people are still homeless and living in fear in various parts of the district, some even in the forests.