Arun Lakshman By Express News Service THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: As many Congress leaders, including KPCC president Mullappally Ramachandran and Oommen Chandy, clamour in support of the Madhav Gadgil report, the story of VV Vijitha comes to the fore from oblivion. She is an environmental activist who had fought against the quarry lobby. Vijitha of Mukkunimala Samarakshana Samithi was arrested on November 24, 2014, in a case filed by the secretary of Palichal panchayat here for allegedly damaging the panchayat office. She was put under judicial custody after being picked up from her residence by the Naruvanmoodu police on a fateful morning. Chandy was the Chief Minister then. “Police came home after my children had gone to school and my husband was out for work. I didn’t even know why I was being taken,” Vijitha remembers. She was lodged at Attakulangara sub-jail and released on bail after three days. “The panchayat even filed a petition with Chief Information Commissioner to declare me as a public nuisance for filing RTI queries. My queries were purely in public interest and wanted the panchayat to be held accountable for the money spent and favours granted,” she adds. The then Chief Information Commissioner Sibi Mathews, however, had dismissed the panchayat’s plea. Mukkunnimala was a forest land inhabited by animals. It also had nearly seven tributaries of Karamana river. “There is acute water shortage during summer, primarily due to the unabated mining at the hillock. All the tributaries have dried,” Vijitha said. Her ordeal allegedly began after she filed a vigilance case based on the records she got from the panchayat through RTI. The then Pallichal panchayat president B Rakesh was charged as the first accused by the Vigilance on the basis of her petition. “I was charged for ransacking and damaging the panchayat office and for disrupting the gram sabha,” Vijitha says. Rakesh was a Congress leader then. He was later expelled by then KPCC president V M Sudheeran. He is now with the CPI.

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