Gouravelli Project Evacuees Urge Governor To Render Justice

State BJP president Bandi Sanjay Kumar, MP; Soyam Bapu Rao, MP; Swamy Goud, former chairman of the Legislative Council; former MLCs N Ramchander Rao, Dr G Manohar Reddy and D Pradeep Kumar; and M Jayasree and K Geethamurthy of the Mahila Morcha on Wednesday submitted a memorandum to Governor Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan requesting her intervention in rendering justice to the displaced in the Gouravelli project as per the law, and seeking action against the police officers who allegedly perpetrated brutalities on the innocent villagers of Gudatipalli.

The petitioners alleged that the police had resorted to indiscriminate lathi-charge on the land evacuees of the Gouravelli-Gandipalle project in the Husnabad Assembly constituency in Siddipet district after midnight of June 13.

They claimed that over 500 police personnel swooped on Gudatipalli village at around 3 am, disconnected the power supply, barged into the houses of the evacuees, pulled them out and resorted to a brutal lathi-charge.

They said that the police did not spare even children, women and old people, and did not follow even the basic norm of deploying women police while arresting women.

The complainants said that many villagers were injured in the police attack, and that several women had fallen unconscious.

On the following day, June 14, when the villagers were staging a silent and peaceful protest, the police instigated TRS workers against them. And instead of coming to the rescue of the protestors, the police caned them again, injuring many of them. Many of the injured were hospitalised, the BJP leaders claimed.

Boini Prabhakar, Kalvala Shekhar, Bojjapuri Ashok, Uske Sushma, Bairi Radhika, Angaeti Thirupathi Reddy and Nalla Mahender Reddy of Gudatipalli, who came to Raj Bhavan to meet the Governor, said that the only crime they committed was to ask for an R&R package as per the law.

Though they had told the government that they were not against the project and that all that they wanted was proper compensation, the police assaulted them indiscriminately, they claimed.

They added that the High Court had directed that the trial run of the project should be taken up only after implementing the R&R package for the evacuees. Even the National Green Tribunal had granted a stay on the project works, they said. The State government was therefore conspiring to get the villages vacated using the police and intimidating the evacuees with lathi-charges, without bothering to pay them their rightful compensation, they claimed.

They said that over 1,000 evacuees had been fighting for justice for several years. Some of the minors had even turned majors and became eligible for compensation. Even the old people had not got their R&R packages. Many issues pertaining to land evacuation still remain unresolved, they added.

The villagers requested the Governor to direct the Director General of Police to identify the erring police officials who indulged in the lathi-charge on the evacuees and take appropriate action against them.

They also appealed to the Governor to direct the State government to grant a suitable R&R package for the evacuees, resolve their pending issues and complete the Gouravelli-Gandipalli project so that the farmers under the project got water for their crops at the earliest.