India - advances the adivasi's protest - the maoists continue armed struggle for the rights of poor in tribal areas.

An adivasi protest in Chhattisgarh is gaining strength
A protest that began last Monday with about 1,000 people has now swollen to more than 5,000. As Scroll reported last week, the arrest of a primary school cook, Hadma Mutchaki of Hamirgarh village, brought 1,000 adivasis to demonstrate outside Tongal police station in Chhattisgarh’s Sukma district on February 16. The police had charged Mutchaki with aiding the Maoists in the murder of a police informer...
Men, women and children sat on the national highway outside the police station, blocking it for 17 hours, and bringing all road traffic between Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh to a halt. The next day, activists Soni Sori and Bela Bhatia persuaded the protestors to move from the highway to a ground near the police station. But the protest itself did not dissipate. It gained strength after the police detained three of the protestors, Hidma Kawasi, Ramji Mandavi and Podiyami Budhra. The final straw came when the three men emerged from police custody with injury marks. They alleged they had been beaten up while in custody. As the news spread, thousands of adivasis from villages across Darbha, Kuakonda, Chhindgarh and Sukma blocks of Bastar and Sukma districts converged on Tongpal on Thursday.

KORAPUT: The Maoists would continue their armed fight against police for the rights of poor in tribal areas, stated secretary of Koraput-Srikakulam Divisional Committee of Maoists in a press release on Monday. “Maoist outfits in Narayanpatna have been working since long for tribal rights and have been successful in ending the harassment by landlords. The liquor trade has been stopped and the land of tribals returned to them through revolutionary means,” it stated.
Opposing the Green Hunt operation of police in the region, Daya stated in the release that the efforts of the State and the Centre to stop Maoist movement in Narayanpatna would fail as they would continue their revolution. “The police operation has motivated the landlords to exploit the tribals again. Our fight is for saving the tribal land, forest and ensuring that the tribals have their share of all round development,” it stated.