Tirupati: G. Rajamanikam, chairman of Mel Kuppasanavoor village in Jamunamarathur, is a distraught man. As he accounts for the dead men from his village killed in the encounter in Seshacalam hills at the Ruia hospital here, he wonders where the numerous awareness programmes conducted in the hills to dissuade young men from heading to AP failed.

“Most of them, including me, don’t even know what that wood is used for or the value of it,” says the 40-year-old chairman.

Late Wednesday night, he was part of the second party from Tiruvannamalai district that arrived at the hospital to confirm the identities of five of the victims. All of them — S. Chinnasamy (47), S. Govindasamy (42), V. Vallimuthu (22), G. Rajendran (30) and R. Paneerselvam (25) — are from non-descript hamlets in Jamunamaruthur village, Javadhu hills. Unlike the other victims killed in the recent police ‘encounter’, these five men had apparently gone into AP forests to cut red sanders earlier, ignoring warnings and awareness drives.

“We have conducted awareness camps, issued warnings to not venture into those forests. They just do not seem to listen,” said T. Prakasam, a police inspector who accompanied the party.

Villagers say that this has now become a perpetual issue where they come from. “Our men can travel across any mountain tirelessly as we grew up in the hills. To move from one hamlet to the other, one has to walk at least 2 km,” says Rajamanickam. Most of them work at coffee and tea plantations in the neighbouring states- Karnataka and Kerala.

Asked if they are aware of the agent who recruits them for these jobs, they feign ignorance. “Those guys come to our places and contact our men,” says Rajamanickam adding it has become such a big chain and lot of middlemen are involved that it is not easy to identify the pivot.

The men are paid anywhere between Rs 200 and Rs 300 for a kg and most of them go completely knowing the risks involved. “From the stories the regulars tell us, it takes a two day hike into the forests to reach where the red sanders are. But, the policemen say they were killed when carrying the logs. How is that possible when they left our villages only on Monday?” asks Govindaraju.

“They said these men threw sickles and stones at the police. You would mistake them for destitute if they walk on the streets. They are that innocent,” exclaimed C. Govindaraju, one of the relatives.