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Farm labour fleeing Jehanabad, says ABVP

The Akhil Bharatiya Vidhyarthi Parishad has said that about 4,800 hectares of land in the extremist-infested Jehanabad district of Bihar could not be tilled as most of the farm labour was fleeing the area in the wake of recent massacres.

Talking to newspersons yesterday after the conclusion of the five- day 'anti-violence march' taken out by the ABVP in 28 villages, organisation secretary Harendra Kumar said the social structure in the district had been battered to such an extent that the farmers were finding it difficult to employ farm labourers in their fields.

He said there was large-scale migration of labourers following an insecure atmosphere prevailing in the district.

Kumar said 85 members of the ABVP, who participated in the march, gathered an impression that social factors were responsible for the massacres which were in some cases only the fall out of personal vendetta.

He said the team, which visited even villages like Kansara, Bathe, Rampur, Aiyara, Senari, Shankar Bigha and Chouram, which witnessed gruesome carnages in the recent past, found that it was only a war of attrition between extremist groups and private army of landlords which had left many lives lost amidst the rhetoric of different political parties.

He said the villagers who wanted to remain neutral in such situations were the main targets of such groups which were only the conglomerate of few criminals.

Advocating strict implementation of land reforms and improving relationship between different sections of the society, Kumar said politicians, the government machinery, particularly police Force, should play an impartial role to avoid such unfortunate happenings.

The ABVP leader said the villages which had witnessed the massacres had not seen the light of development and regretted that the state government acted only after all damages were done and lives of innocent people were lost.

He alleged that the ''killers'' had even prior information about the movement of the police, which made their task of escaping from the dragnet of law easier.

He said even the contractors were not ready to involve themselves in the execution of the developmental schemes planned for the area, as the extremist groups and private army of landlords demanded 20 per cent share from the total contractual amount.

He said the average fallout of such massacres on the society was worse. Parents now did not want to marry their children in Jehanabad district and even people had stopped visiting the houses of their close relatives. He said the education in the district was also badly hampered as the schools had turned into police pickets.

Kumar said the villagers in the district were spending sleepless nights in fear of attempts on their lives every moment.

UNI

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