Arrest in one-year-old complaint by a tribesman; HRDS alleges vendetta by government
Arrest in one-year-old complaint by a tribesman; HRDS alleges vendetta by government
Aji Krishnan, founder-secretary of the controversial non-governmental organisation named Highrange Rural Development Society (HRDS), was arrested in connection with a tribal land grab case at Attappady on Monday night.
A court at Mannarkkad remanded him in police custody until Wednesday. The court denied him bail considering the prosecution’s argument that there were similar complaints against Aji Krishnan and several co-accused were to be nabbed.
Police detained Aji Krishnan within hours after he returned from abroad and landed at Attappady on Monday. His arrest was recorded late at night in connection with a complaint that Raman, a tribesman from Vattilakki hamlet at Sholayur, had filed about a year ago.
Charges of tribal land grabbing, burning tribal huts, and humiliating by calling caste names, were slapped against Aji Krishnan. Police had not acted against the HRDS and its officials in spite of complaints of encroachment in tribal land and atrocities against tribespeople filed in August last year.
However, the police had been blamed for acting against a tribal leader at the behest of the HRDS officials. No action had been taken against the HRDS even after the State Human Rights Commission visited Attappady and found that there had been excesses against the tribespeople.
Aji Krishnan on Tuesday alleged that the government was vindictive, and that his arrest was in vengeance for giving shelter to Swapna Suresh, one of the key accused in the high-profile diplomatic channel gold smuggling case. Swapna, while working for the HRDS, had stirred a hornet’s nest by making a confidential confession before a magistrate, directly linking Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, his family and some top bureaucrats and politicians with the gold smuggling case.
The HRDS sacked Swapna last week after its officials were persistently harassed by different arms of the State police.
Aji Krishnan, in his bail application, argued that the State government was vindictive because the HRDS had harboured a controversial figure (Swapna Suresh).
The HRDS had taken on lease 56 acre land at Vattilakki in Sholayur panchayat of Attappady from former bureaucrat R. Ramachandran Nair over a year ago. A section of tribes-people built huts in that land, arguing that the land belonged to them.
The huts had been burnt and the tribes-people manhandled by a group of men. However, the police had not registered a case in that.
The HRDS alleged that its officials were being haunted by the State government for sheltering Swapna Suresh. It said that false charges were slapped against Aji Krishnan on the basis of a directive from Chief Minister’s office.
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