Less than a month ago, Obulapuram in neighbouring Ananthapuram district of Andhra Pradesh was a Reddy mine baron stronghold, where even officials from the top government agencies feared to enter, let alone conduct an inspection.
On Saturday, it crumbled under the onslaught of thousands of activists of the
Communist Party of India and Andhra Pradesh Raithu Sangam, who forcibly took back the lands they had given up for mining.
After performing puja at the newly re-constructed Suggalamma Devi temple on a hillock, activists and farmers led by the CPI Andhra Pradesh state executive council member K. Ramakrishna walked into the mine demanding that their land, acquired for the company, be returned to them.
With OMC barred from any mining activity and arrest of the owner Gali Janardhan Reddy for alleged illegal mining activities, the farmers want their land back.
Agitating activists and farmers took control over the Obulapuram mining and stockyard fields for nearly five hours ransacking the weigh-bridge office and railway siding and damaging the electronic equipments and other valuables in the site office and razing to the ground, three security sheds at its office in Obulapuram, 20 km from here.
Obulapuram Gram Panchayat vice-president Venkatesh who led the SC/ST farmers agitation said that the Andhra Pradesh Industrial Area Development Board diverted 360 acres of DKT land which decades ago had been granted to 110 families of schedule tribe and caste farmers, to OMC for mining activity when late chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy was in power. He said 250 acres of agriculture patta lands had been allegedly acquired and encroached by the OMC, which threatened farmers.