K. Suresh KumarThiruvananthapuram: Tom Zachariah, the preacher who leads the prayer group at the heart of the Munnar land grab controversy, has formed an encroachment mafia, said K. Suresh Kumar, a former bureaucrat who led an eviction drive in the hill town 10 years ago.
“I was convinced that Zachariah’s brothers had forged documents and encroached on government land,” Kumar told Manorama News. The officials shied away from taking action against the brothers even after the chairman of the Land Board ordered them to take back the land. The encroachers are still wielding the same kind of political pressure, judging from the suspension of the eviction drive, Kumar said.
Zachariah’s Spirit in Jesus ministry had put up a gigantic iron cross on top of the ecologically fragile Pappathichola near Munnar. A team of the district administration razed the cross and other illegal constructions but the action was quickly denounced by chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan. Local CPM leaders have come out against the district collector and the subcollector.
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Kumar, who led the eviction drive for the then chief minister V.S. Achuthanandan, said the veteran leader was silent because he was under pressure from his party.
He also took a shot at the CPI, whose party offices were targeted for demolition during the earlier eviction drive. He said he was not convinced about the intent of the party leaders when they defended the current eviction. They should vacate their party office first and help reclaim the land possessed by the Tata company, he said.
If a people’s committee were to decide which encroachments needed to be reclaimed, why do we have land laws, he asked.
