Vociferous Protest by procession and meeting near DC office supporting Gregory Patrao

03.05.10 Mangalore : The Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha of D.K district, Green Brigade of Bangalore besides Janadhwani People’s union for civil Liberties and a dozen other public service outfits went in a protest procession on the streets of Mangalore and converged at the DC office gates on Monday morning, to demonstrate publicly against the injustice barbarously meted out to a farmer and former VP of Bala GP, one Gregory Patrao of Green house activities in the D.K. Dt.  Patrao’s 350-years old ancestral house was razed to the ground and his 14 acres of centuries old cultivated land was acquired by KIADB by force, for MRPL expansion.

On Friday, last week Gregory’s family thus thrown out of its ancient land and home spent a night under open skies. If there was an injustice of the worst order, it was handed to Gregory as a fighter for farmer’s rights to their lands and homes in rural areas. Gregory lived in Kalavaru village in D.K.

Melville Pinto of Janadhwani (People’s voice) sent a memorandum to State Governor, H.R. Bhardhwaj through DC, V. Ponnuraj, along with a complaint hand-written in Kannada by the beleaguered Gregory himself, a rural farmer ousted by MRPL from ancestral lands. Pinto said his eyes got wet when he read Gregory’s petition to the state governor. He accused KIADB as servant of land Mafia ruling the coastal areas. Public service has been reduced to looting of farmers, he added.

Gregory has detailed all the happenings that took place in Kalavaru on April 28 and thereafter when his aged mother Mary (74) fainted when the ancestral home was pulled down and looted by land authorities.

The green army of state Raitha Sangha (Farmers’ Union) in its memorandum to DC, V. Ponnuraj, recapitulated in detail the brutal steps taken by KIADB against its activist and land protection fighter, Gregory Patrao in the last 5 or 6 days. The action against him was ordered by Assistant Commissioner, as per local Tahsildar’s confessions. There were 200 policemen to bundle out one Christian Konkani person, his mother and a brother who fainted. Similar injustice to real farmers has been dealt in Yermalu Village of Udupi taluk also, to a Bunt Family, the letter said. The green army has questioned the method in this madness of looting the farmers’ properties possessed for centuries and generations.

The open letter signed by a dozen names in the Farmers’ Union has accused the chief Minister who took vows in the name of farmers. The treatment was brutal but no one has bothered to console the aggrieved, they remarked.

The D.K. Dt. Raitha Sangha in a separate memorandum to the people at large, signed by like-minded organisations as well, stated that a situation was created where a peaceful struggle by landless farmers has become inevitable. The compensation was a pittance when farmers’ lands are taken away on the coastal region for whatever purpose by giant industrial companies which do not benefit poor farmers in turn. How can 14 acres being tilled for centuries, be given to any industry without adequate compensation money being deposited in a court of Law, the Mangalore Raitha Sangha asked.

William D’Souza, Vice President of Krishi Bhumi Samrakshana Samithi and Esha Vittala Dasa Swamy of Kemar Math speaking at the protest meeting held this morning /near DC office also concurred with the other speakers against the injustice done to Gregory Patrao.  

The demonstration ended with leaders’ speeches.