Muthanga eviction was a bid to crush the Adivasi movement: Geethanandan

The Muthanga land agitation of 2003 remains one of the most significant chapters in Kerala’s Adivasi rights movement. The stir culminated in a violent confrontation between security personnel and protesters inside the Muthanga Wildlife Sanctuary in Wayanad district, leaving police constable K.V. Vinod and Adivasi community member Yogi (Jogi) dead.Last month, a court in Kalpetta, the administrative headquarters of Wayanad district, acquitted all those who faced trial in the Vinod murder case. It, however, sentenced M. Geethanandan, a social activist and State coordinator of the Adivasi Gothra Mahasabha (AGMS), which spearheaded the agitation, and three others to five years of rigorous imprisonment for attempting to murder another police officer.More than two decades after the land struggle,