Jagan seeks probe into plantation burning incident

Leader of the Opposition in Andhra Pradesh legislative Assembly and president of YSR Congress Party YS Jagan Mohan Reddy today requested AP and Telangana Governor ESL Narasimhan to order a probe by a sitting High Court Judge to bring out the facts behind the burning of banana plantations and pumpsets of farmers in the proposed capital city region.

"The TDP government in Andhra Pradesh has unleashed a reign of terror against helpless farmers in Tullur area of Guntur district in their pursuit of building a grandiose capital on most fertile multi-cropped irrigated land for the reconstituted state, despite the AP Reorganisaton Act 2014 offering to denotify degraded forest land for the purpose of construction of capital," Jagan Mohan Reddy said in a letter submitted in person to Narasimhan on Monday.

According to the letter, the police and revenue officials are given strict instructions to coerce innocent farmers into surrendering their land. Where farmers are resisting, they are being harassed by them who are threatening them with dire consequences, it said.

Apart from seeking a probe into the incidents, Jagan also requested the Governor to provide protection to farmers who do not want to offer their agricultural lands as part of land pooling.