Prominent members of the civil society on Tuesday has appealed to the Chief Minister M. K. Stalin for the immediate release of 20 farmers, who were arrested for protesting against the proposed SIPCOT unit near Cheyyar town in Tiruvannamalai.
In a statement, the civil society has sought the intervention of the Chief Minister to take steps to withdraw cases against farmers of Melma and surrounding villages and release them immediately. “We strongly condemn the high handedness of the Tamil Nadu government and its police to arrest and remand the farmers,” social activist Aruna Roy of Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) said in the statement.
The farmers have been doing a peaceful sit-in protest in patta land for more than 100 days opposing the proposed acquisition of the State government. However, police barged into the houses of farmers and arrested them on November 4. Later, twenty of them were remanded to judicial custody on an FIR filed in August.
