The lynching of 27-year-old tribal youth Madhu in Kerala’s Attapadi Adivasi settlement area on Thursday by a group of people need not be a case of mob fury over alleged theft of food but it could have been something more than that if there is truth in what the Madhu’s family and people working for Adivasis’ rights in the area are saying.

Madhu’s family on Saturday alleged that the lynch mob had reached the rock cave in jungle of Andiyilakkara, some four kilometers away from Mukkali junction in the Attapadi area, where he had been living for the past five years on the basis of information provided by some staff of the Kerala State Forest Department.

People studying the Attapadi tribal situation say that the presence of Madhu, though he was mentally unsound, in the forest might have been an irritant if not a threat to the smooth operation of the forces plundering jungle wealth allegedly with the help of Forest Department officials and this point should be taken into consideration while probing the lynching.

“It was Vinod, a driver with the Forest Department, who had given information to the mob on the place where my brother lived. He had given the details of the place over the phone to these people from Thavalam, Pakkulam, Kalkandi, etc,” Madhu’s sister Chandrika told the media on Saturday.

According to her, a Forest Department vehicle had accompanied the mob as they took Madhu to Mukkali Junction after brutally beating him up at the rock cave. “Unable to walk properly after the torture he had undergone, he covered the four kilometers from the rock cave to Mukkali virtually crawling when this Forest Department jeep accompanied them,” she said.

She said the mob had even refused him drinking water when he pleaded with them for that. “Do you know what they did when he asked for water? They asked him to put his tongue out and gave just two drops and poured the remaining water on the ground in front of him as though they wanted him to lick it,” Chandrika said.

She pointed out that even Adivasis, who depend on jungles for livelihood, were being allowed into the forest – where Madhu used to live – which came under the so-called Maoist-infested Bhavani Range only after examining identity cards. “How could a mob of so many men go there and do something like this without Forest officials’ knowledge and permission?” she asked.

The chief of the Forest Department on Saturday reportedly ordered an inquiry by the internal Vigilance into the allegation though Forest officials in Agali denied the charges. An official said nobody in the department even knew Madhu. Forest Minister K Raju said that the department would look into the allegation.

According to tribal welfare activist Dhanya Raman, the lynching of Madhu might have been yet another case of collusion between land-grabber settlers and the authorities for plundering forest wealth. She told the media that she had conveyed her suspicions about a possible plot behind the lynching to MR Ajithkumar, Inspector General of Police who is supervising the probe.

“All the hills in the Attapadi region were dense forests till some decades ago. All those trees were felled and smuggled out of here by the people from outside (settlers) with the connivance of the Forest officials. These forces might have considered the presence of Madhu in the forest cave as a threat to their operations,” she told the media.

Another tribal leader from Mananthavadi, an Adivasi region in Wayanad, said that Madhu’s lynching might keep Adivasis away from the forest at least for a long time. “The police and Forest departments have so far restricted entry into the Bhavani forests in the name of Maoist threat. Still people were going in search of food and firewood. That may stop now,” he said.