TN farmers go neck deep in dry river bed, seek CMB

Buried neck deep in the dry river bed with rose garlands, a group of farmers today chose the novel protest to symbolically highlight their plight and demand setting up of the Cauvery Management Board.

Choosing the Cauvery river bank in the temple town of Srirangam, encircled by the river Cauvery and its tributary Kollidam in the heart of the delta region for the protest, the farmers led by P Ayyakannu staged the 'burial protest' for nearly two hours.

Later they were removed by police persoonel with the help of volunteers.

Tense moments prevailed for some time when a group of about 50 farmers earlier arrived at the venue raising slogans, demanding immedaite constitution of the CMB.

When all of them tried to bury themselves, police personnel prevented them from doing so and allowed only 17 of them to stage the protest.

They immediately dug a pit and covered themselves with sand and raised slogans against the Centre for not setting up the CMB, despite the directive of the Supreme Court.

73-year-old Ayakannu, known for his macabre protests like eating rats to draw attention to farmers' problems, told PTI "we will wait upto April 9. we trust we will get justice."
On his next action plan, Ayyakannu, president of National South Indian Rivers Inter-Linking Farmers Association, said "we have no other option, but to follow the gandhian path and inflict harm on ourselves...."