Eviction threat looms over migrant Gutti Koya Adivasis Premium

The gruesome killing of a Forest Range Officer allegedly by the Gutti Koya tribe members triggered a wave of protests by Forest employees; the tribals receive an eviction notice after just five days of the murder

An eerie calm pervades this tiny tribal settlement of the migrant Gutti Koya Adivasis as the clamour for their eviction from Yerrabodu grows shriller.

In the aftermath of the brutal murder of a diligent Forest Range Officer, Ch Srinivas Rao, allegedly by two Gutti Koya tribals of this hamlet located in the forest area of Chandrugonda mandal over a week ago, unrest brewed.

A little over 250 members of around 45 Gutti Koya families living in thatched huts/tiled-roof dwellings in the Yerrabodu forest area, devoid of electricity, near Bendalapadu village, located around 5 km from Chandrugonda, in the tribal majority Bhadradri Kothagudem district, are facing the prospect of eviction.

The gruesome killing of the FRO at Yerrabodu on November 22 triggered a wave of protests by the rank-and-file of forest employees across the State and set off a strident demand for the provision of arms to the frontline forest staff and officials for self-defence.

The ‘unprovoked’ fatal attack on the FRO took place when the latter, accompanied by a section officer, arrived in Yerrabodu on a bike on that ill-fated day to prevent an alleged attempt by some local migrant tribals to damage saplings by allowing cattle to graze in a plantation raised by the forest department on a 25-acre ‘retrieved’ forest land.

The grisly crime had sparked outrage, and the forest staff vociferously demanded exemplary punishment for the killers.

The forest staff turned their ire at the Gutti Koya tribals who migrated to the State from Chhattisgarh. The tribals were unable to cope with the persecution by Salwa Judum, the ‘State-sponsored militia’ in their native strife-torn State since 2004-05. They were penalised for “destroying forests” in the name of podu, shifting cultivation.