THE Centre of Indian Trade Unions, in a statement issued on April 9 has condemned the barbaric killings of 20 labourers in the Seshachalam forest in Andhra Pradesh by the Andhra Pradesh police on April 7, in the name of encounter with sandal-wood smugglers. The CITU has called upon the workers and the trade unions to raise their voice of protest against the police-brutality.

According to the information and reports pouring in the media, the so-called encounter is a completely fake one. Labourers hired for cutting wood were killed in cold blood by the state police to camouflage and cover-up their failure to contain the increasing menace of smuggling of red sanders. This is simply inhuman as well as heinous on the part of state administration that their abject failure to contain the smuggling or capture the smugglers is being sought to be camouflaged by brutal killings of the poor labourers hired for cutting woods in the forest, the statement noted.

The CITU has demanded a judicial enquiry into the incident of such heinous killings and further demanded the state government to pay adequate compensation to the families of the victims of police brutality.