Middleman cut deal at wedding with woodcutters

TIRUVANNAMALAI: It was a marriage that led to several funerals. Twelve labourers of Vettagiripalayam and neighbouring villages of Tiruvannamalai district, who fell to bullets in Andhra Pradesh forests on Tuesday, were among the guests at the wedding of a farmer's son on Monday . The men, who were working as farmhands in Kerala, had a chance meeting with a man who made an offer they couldn't resist: Bring down red sanders from the Seshachalam forest across the border, and pocket `700 per kg.
They packed their axes and left home the same day, without telling their families what they were up to. The next morning the villagers woke up to the news of 20 men being gunned down the special task force in the nearby Andhra forests. Given the history of its young men being lured by the `blood wood assignment,' the village was prepared to hear the worst of news--which soon came.
But they are still not prepared to be branded smugglers. “Our boys are not smugglers,“ said K Ellamma, 55, mother of K Perumal, 36, one of the youths who took bullets in his chest. “We are farmhands.“ Maybe woodcutters, said some other villagers who were proud of the Jawadha Hills tribe's skill in bringing down trees in no time.
Ellamma said her son ­ and many men from the region ­ was working as a labourer in Kerala farms and construction sites after successive failure of monsoon dried up agriculture in the region. Before leaving on Monday, Perumal told his daughter P Sindhu, a Class 9 student, that soon after his return, he would go to Kerala to work as a supplier in wedding halls. He didn't tell his wife Selvi, 31, what this short assignment was, but promised her that he would spend the weekend with her and their three children before he goes to Kerala for a steady job.
“He was a nice man, not into anything illegal,“ said Selvi. “But something happened at the wedding, where he and many other men got together and decided to go somewhere after meeting someone.“
Murugamma, mother-inlaw of another victim, G Munusamy, 35, said she was surprised by the police story. “He has been a construction worker. People here don't go to cut trees,“ she said. Collector (Tiruvannamalai) A Gnanasekaran said the men fall prey when middlemen offer big wages. “We need to do something to weed out these middlemen, he said.