ON his way to release the Kannada Daily at Kasaragod on September 10, Sitaram Yechury, CPI(M) general secretary, visited Sundara Malekudiya who was admitted to a hospital in Mangaluru on September 3.

48 year old Sundara Malekudiya, a tribal residing at the hilly area of Neriya village of  Dakshina Kannada district, was assaulted by a landlord, Gopala Gowda with a weed-cutting machine on July 27. He had suffered serious injury on his left elbow and has lost two fingers in his right hand. Doctors said that it would take about a year for his hands to function.

While expressing anger over the attack, Yechury told Malekudiya that the Party would support him and his family members in their fight against Gopala Gowda. He demanded that the landlord family and the government should bear the hospital expenses of the victim and the government should declare compensation. Terming the attack on Sundara Malekudiya a heinous act, he demanded that a thorough investigation should be carried out without allowing any political force to dilute the case. He demanded that all tribals should have been given legal pattas by now as the Forest Rights Act was enacted many years ago. Yechury said that he would raise this issue in the parliament.

Karnataka state co-convener of Adivasi Adhikar Manch SY Gurushanth, CPI(M) district secretary, Vasantha Achary, CPI(M) state committee members J Balakrishna Shetty, BM Bhat, K Yadava Shetty accompanied Yechury when he visited the hospital.