Janu out on bail, vows to fight on

C.K. Janu, youthful leader of tribals in Kerala who shot to fame with her struggle demanding land for landless tribals that climaxed in a police firing at Muthanga in north Kerala on February 19, was released on bail here yesterday.

Tribal leaders and human rights activists greeted the Adivasi Gothra Maha Sabha leader with flower garlands and slogans as she and 12 other tribal women, who were also granted bail, came out of the district jail here.

They were let off as the Kerala High Court granted them conditional bail in connection with two cases relating to the Muthanga incident.

Speaking on the occasion, Janu pledged to carry on the "struggle for right to live" with greater vigour by encroaching more lands and pitching huts till the last tribal got land.

She also told the media that it was a struggle for "the land we were born in and it would be intensified".

"Even if more tribals are shot down we will not retreat and we are not afraid of police action," she said, alluding to the February 19 police firing at Muthanga in which a tribal was killed.