Pon Vasanth Arunachalam By

MADURAI: Exposing yet another hole in the Andhra Pradesh police theory that 20 woodcutters from Tamil Nadu were killed in an encounter in April, two village heads have pointed out that the way the victims were dressed proves that they were not shot while chopping red sander trees.

P Murthy, tribal headman of Anandapuram in Tiruvannamalai district, claimed people from the hilly hamlets of Tiruvannamalai and Dharmapuri have a peculiar habit of tying their dress around their waist while at work in the forest.

According to him, the pictures of the so-called encounter victims prove that they were not shot while chopping redwood. “Most of our men are good woodcutters. When we go inside forests for woodcutting, we work only in our underwear or shorts and a towel around our head... Our clothes will be tied in a towel which will, in turn, be tied around our waists,” said Murthy.

Acknowledging that there are some people in the surrounding villages who go for woodcutting in Andhra Pradesh, M Santha Murthi, panchayat president of the same village, said those loggers too confirmed the prevalence of this habit.

“We spoke to them after the incident. They said that whether it is five or 10 days, the clothes, folded and tied in a towel, will be around their waist,” he said. “They have to come back in buses and trains after the work, wearing the same clothes. It is common sense to keep them clean.”

They pointed out that, in contrast to this, most of the men who were gunned down by the Andhra police were seen wearing clothes or without the towel around their waist in the pictures that were released.