Miscreants destroy crops, farmers in tears

Gadwal: Some unidentified miscreants bearing grudge against a group of farmers from Edigonipally village of Gadwal mandal resorted to illegal and criminal act of destroying 7 acres of standing cotton crop on Friday.

According to the villagers, 5 tenant farmers from Edigonipally village had taken 7 acres of land on lease and had sown cotton crop. Out of seven acres, the farmers had sown male cotton crop on 2 acres and female cotton crop on the remaining 5 acres of land.

Once the male cotton crop reaches the flowering stage, the farmers perform the crossing process with the female cotton crop so that it will yield high qualtiy breed cotton seeds. These seeds are later processed and packed as seed cotton and sold commercially, which would bring them good returns.

However, some unidentified miscreants of the village resorted to destruction of male cotton crop over the extent of 2 acres and caused a huge loss to the poor tenant farmers. “In our village, there are 300 houses and majority of them are farmers who earn a living by doing farming.

This year we a group of 5 farmers had taken 7 acres of land on lease and sown cotton seed crop. However some miscreants have resorted to destroy our crop and pushed us in deep financial crises,” lamented Pedda Pogula Saranna, a tenant farmer who lost his valuable crop.

“We had invested Rs. 2-3 lakh per acre as input capital and strived hard to groom the crop like small children. But some miscreants played foul with us and pushed us in huge debts,” he said.

The other farmers who lost the crop include Chinna Pogula Saranna, Devara Vadde Ramudu, Devara Hanumanthu and Pola Pedda Narasimhulu. “The miscreants had resorted to this heinous crime of spoiling our crop during mid-night. We were planning to do the crossing over of male and female crop today, but to our utter shock when we went to our field in the morning we found that the cotton plants were plucked indiscriminately and thrown helter-skelter.

We have already filed a complaint in the police station,” informed Devara Hanumanthu. The villagers who gathered demanded that the police should conduct a thorough inquiry and bring to book those who are responsible for this criminal act. They also demanded the government to provide compensation to the farmers who had lost the crop.