Over 3,000 Adivasis reportedly stormed the Khandwa collectorate in Madhya Pradesh (MP) in order to “teach” law to district administration and officials responsible for “illegal evictions and assault on Adivasi families”. NGO sources said, the raid took place under the banned of the Jagrit Adivasi Dalit Sangathan (JADS), which staged a demonstration against the forest department and the district administration (DC), Khandwa.
According JADS, enraged Adivasis made their way to the DC office via the DFO office and the MP Forest Development Corporation District Office, where the forest department had “illegally assaulted” and “confined” three Adivasis who were picked up during the “illegal eviction action” of the Forest Department on July 10, 2021. The three Adivasis were “illegally detained” for over 10 hours.
Calling it a “hypocrisy of the forest department and the State government illegally evicting Adivasis in the name of protecting forests”, JADAS said, this happened even as the MP government “plans to handover 382 hectares of forest to fell at least 2.15 lakh trees and displace over 8,000 people for the sake of diamond mining in a region infamous for drought and water scarcity.”
The protesters opposed “loot and dacoity” of 40 Adivasi families overseen by the forest department during their “illegal eviction drive”, said JADS, adding, “Many Adivasi activists who have been demanding action on illegal felling highlighted the connivance of the forest department with timber smugglers and those involved in illegal felling of trees while the forest department continuously makes Adivasis scapegoats of the same.”
“Raising slogans of ‘Adivasi hai toh jungle hai’, ‘jungle hai toh adivasi hai’, ‘Van vibhag ki Tanashahi nahi chalegi’, protesting Adivasis also warned the adminstration that further violence by the administration will only force Adivasis to escalate their movement against the violence by the forest department”, JADS said in a statement.
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