4 farmers attempt suicide at bagair hukum protest

 Tension prevailed for a time when four farmers attempted suicide during  a protest demanding the regularisation of lands belonging to Bagair Hukum cultivators of Mudigere Kaval here on Tuesday.

The four have been identified as Srinivas, Thimmaraju, Narasimha Murthy and Venkatesh of Mekarahalli of Honnenahalli, who are all bagair hukum cultivators. The protest turned dramatic when Venkatesh climbed up a tree at Tahslidar’s office premises threatening to jump off it. While police and taluk administration officials faced difficulty in convincing him to come down, the other three attempted to consume pesticide in front of tahsildar G H Nagahanumaiah sending protesters in a tizzy.

They were rushed to hospital immediately.
As the news spread, family members of the four farmers rushed to the hospital. After giving first-aid treatment, they were shifted to Tumkur Hospital.

Background

Since 1991, many farmers have been cultivating on 4,600 acres of land in survey no 12 at Mudigere Kaval under Bagair Hukum law. Of which, many lands have been regularised but as many as 20 farmers are yet to get their lands regularised.
 
Farmers have been demanding regularisation of such lands but authorities concerned including tahsildar had not considered their demands. Besides, forest and town municipal council officials who visited these lands, recently, had told farmers that the lands will not be regularised instead will take into the TMC jurisdiction. Upset over it, the farmers had gathered in front of the tahslidar’s office to protest. Since they did not get any positive responses from the officials, the farmers decided to attempt suicide, it is said.

Later in the day, the incident took on a political colour as former minister B Sathyanarayana accompanied by other JD(S) party leaders rushed to the hospital and enquired about the health of the four farmers. They later held a protest march till Tahsildar’s office and held the taluk administration and legislator responsible for the incident.