The Congress Legislature Party has constituted a four-member fact-finding committee on the incident of attack on Forest Department officials allegedly by Koneru Krishna Rao, brother of Sirpur Kagaznagar legislator Koneru Konappa, and his followers at Sarasala village of Kumram Bheem-Asifabad district on Sunday.
Leader of CLP M. Bhatti Vikramarka formed the committee with legislators D. Sridhar Babu, Podem Veeraiah, D. Anasuya (Seethakka) and T. Jayaprakash (Jagga) Reddy and asked it to submit the report in a week. He alleged that Mr. Krishna and his followers had started attacking the Forest Department officials as they started pre-plantation work on the 20 hectares forest land identified in lieu of use of forest land elsewhere for Kaleshwaram project.
The miscreants had used filthy language against the forest officials on duty and beaten up them brutally resulting in serious injuries to several forest officials.
Mr. Vikramarka alleged that the TRS government was also not implementing the Forest Rights Act legislated by the Congress government in the past to protect the rights of tribal communities, particularly those engaged in ‘Podu’ cultivation. He pointed out that Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao had assured the Assembly in the past that the ‘Podu’ lands issue would be settled once for all but no steps were taken till date.