[Reader-list] Prakash Karat ensured peace in chengara

[Anivar Aravind]

Efforts on to ensure peace at Chengara

Special Correspondent
The Hindu
http://www.hindu.com/2008/09/03/stories/2008090356730100.htm

CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat met a team from Chengara on Tuesday.
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Concerted efforts are on at the level of the
government and the CPI(M) leadership to avert any outbreak of violence
at Chengara where plantation workers are planning to hold a march to
the venue of a land struggle in the estate land of the Harrison
Malayalam Group.

The government has issued strict instructions to the district
administration to ensure that there is no breach of peace in
connection with the march planned by the trade unions, which have been
staging a 'blockade' on the roads leading to the estate land where
hundreds of Scheduled Caste and Dalit Christian families are on an
agitation for land for cultivation and habitation. The confrontation
between the two sides has been a matter of concern and efforts are
under way at different levels to find an amicable solution to the
stand-off.

Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Development Minister A.K. Balan
was in touch with the district administration and the district
leadership of the party on Monday following reports that some Dalit
families headed for the estate land were beaten up by the plantation
workers. The offices of the Chief Minister and Revenue Minister K.P.
Rajendran also have been keeping a close tab on the unfolding
situation with strict instructions to the administration to see to it
that nothing untoward happens in the area.

On Tuesday, CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat, who discussed the
issue with Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, was told that all
steps were being taken to ensure that there was no breach of peace and
no attack on the agitators.

Mr. Karat told a delegation of women activists, who called on him on
Tuesday evening with a memorandum seeking an early resolution to the
Dalits' struggle for land, that the Home Minister had been told to
prevent violence as part of the march on Wednesday. Issues relating to
plantations in general would have to be dealt with separately, he
pointed out.

The delegation appealed to Mr. Karat to ensure that there was no
further violence against women participating in the agitation and the
plantation workers' blockade was lifted at the earliest. He assured
them that the CPI(M) and the government were fully sensitive to the
issues raised by them.