Mystery shrouds the fate of thousands of woodcutters who left their families in Tamil Nadu in search of work in Andhra Pradesh, apart from the encounter in the Seshachalam forest range in which 20 labourers allegedly involved in cutting red sanders trees were shot dead.
S Subarayan (32) of Nambiampattu tribal village near Tiruvanamalai district has not returned home. He had left six months ago to Andhra Pradesh where he was arrested by forest officials on charges of chopping red sanders near Chittoor.
His wife Kamala and three little children anxiously await his return. His father Kuppusamy does not have money to bail his son out from a prison where he is reportedly lodged.
“Now, I work for my son's family. My earnings don't fetch enough money to fix a lawyer for a bail petition,” he said.
According to a statistics collated by National Campaign for DNT Human Rights, more than 2,500 labourers from Tamil Nadu are languishing in Andhra Pradesh prisons over the last seven months with a majority of them arrested from trains, buses, bus stands and railway stations, rather than from the scene of offence. They are lodged in sub-jails located in Nellore and Chittoor districts.
The findings further said that of this number, more than 60 per cent of the labourers who were arrested by Andhra Pradesh police were from from Jawadhu Hills near Tiruvanamalai district and the rest from Dharmapuri and Salem districts.
Tiruvanamalai district authorities said there were no police records registering the arrest of several woodcutters, especially those held in Andhra Pradesh forests. The arrested and missing woodcutters include those employed by the agents several months ago.
“We cannot take steps unless people lodge a complaint with us. They are afraid since they feel it might go worse for those in AP jails,” a senior police official here said.
“My husband left in December. He said he was going for sand quarry work. However, he has not returned till now,” Rajathi, hailing from Nambiampattu village, said.
“He goes for contractual jobs. We have no clue who calls him. We even don't know where they are going and when they will come back,” she said.
A lawyer based in Tiruvanamalai said that as per the information from police officials of Andhra Pradesh, most of workers from Tamil Nadu were detained in cases relating to red sanders; of these about 20 per cent were booked on charges of murder.