Attack at Kuthluru depicts the desperation of left extremists over their failure to persuade tribals to stay on in the national park, say activists.
Inquiries made by dna into the Maoist attack on Ramachandra Bhat’s house in Kuthluru in Belthangady taluk on Saturday revealed startling facts. The Left extremists wanted tribal farmer families in Kudremukh National Park area to stay on in the park area as their captive support bank. But the work carried out by NGOs persuaded the families accept the government rehabilitation packages and to move out of the KNP.
“Maoist leaders such as Vikram Gowda and some supporters in Chikmagalur, Shimoga, Udupi and Dakshina Kannada districts felt their movement would lose its rationale if the families vacated the KNP area,” said field officer of an NGO, Ramesh Gowda of Belthangady.
“As a result they have started attacking workers of NGOs and Bhat was the first victim,” he said.
About 300 persons from 120 families that used to reside in the KNP, who accepted the government compensation package and moved out to the rehabilitation colonies, assembled in Kuthluru to show their solidarity with Bhat.
Ramanna Malekudiya has moved to Subramanya and has started his own eatery out of the money he got from surrendering five acres of his farm inside the KNP to the government.
“I was approached by an NGO in Mangalore that convinced me to accept the package. I was fed up with the Maoists. Every now and then, some strangers visited us, lectured us on ideology, intimidated me and my family, took our rations, kerosene and vegetables... They would carry guns, which was a subtle indication of what could go wrong if we did not heed them,” Malekudiya said.
Conservationists, who were fighting another battle with the government on the conservation front, also felt it was better that all the 1300 families living inside the KNP left. The forest and the home departments appear to be at loggerheads over the issue. Home minister KJ George, during one of the interaction with the journalists, had said: “Maoists were also our people they should not be linked to the alien ideology of Maoism they were only misguided youth which we have to get back into the mainstream not by coercion but by love and empowerment.”
With acts like attacking families in villages like the incident in Kuthluru, even the home department has woken up and has asked the ANF and the police to go after the Maoists, say sources.
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