Human Rights Forum (HRF) has demanded Anakapalle municipality to
immediately stop illegal dumping of garbage at Achayyapeta village of
Sundarayyepta panchayat in Anakapalle mandal of Visakhapatnam district.

Further,
it condemned the use of police force to prevent the villagers from
interfering and holding them in custody at Anakapalle rural, Kasimkota
and Chodavaram police stations.

A two-member HRF team, which
visited the area on Friday, interacted with residents of different
villages and spoke with the officials. HRF state general secretary VS
Krishna said villagers were against the shifting of the compost yard
site from Anakapalle to Achayyapeta. He said the civic body has violated
all laws and dumped the garbage on villagers, though the village
panchayat had not given its consent.

In fact, residents of
Sundarayyapeta, Achayyapeta, Mondipalem, Venkupalem and Seetanagaram
have been resisting the attempt to dump the garbage in their villages by
Anakapalle municipality for years.

On Friday, large contingent of
police personnel moved in to assist the civic body staff to dump the
municipal waste near Achayapeta. Anakapalle municipal commissioner S
Muralidhar Rao personally supervised entire operation. When HRF members
asked him whether the requisite permission from the AP Pollution Control
Board was obtained, he replied in the negative stating that he had
sought permission a couple of days ago, which is proof enough to say the
dumping of garbage in village lands was illegal, HRF contended.