Kokrajhar villagers protest land acquisition for construction of Circuit House
BJSM calls it 'anti-tribal' move
OUR CORRESPONDENT
KOKRAJHAR: The villagers of Bhatarmari in Kokrajhar town on Thursday strongly opposed the acquisition of land belonging to tribal people by the Kokrajhar district administration for construction of a new Circuit House, while the Bodoland Janajati Suraksha Mancha (BJSM) called it and 'anti-tribal move' and urged the district administration to seek land in alternative areas where several hundreds of bighas of khas lands are being grabbed by illegal settlers near River Gaurang adjacent to Kokrajhar town.
Meanwhile, the villagers have already moved the Gauhati High Court to challenge the forceful acquisition of land of tribal people who have been living there since ages.
Talking to this correspondet, Bikash Basumatary alias Laloo said the district administration of Kokrajhar on Thursday carried out a land survey through GPS near River Gaurang and put posts in 36 bighas of land belonging to Bodo villagers of Bhattarmari without giving prior notice, in the name of construction of new Circuit House. He said the lands belonged to them but most of the lands became ownerless due to change of the course of River Gaurang in the past. He said most of the lands were myadi patta land while some people are paying taxes for their land.
Basumatary said they had nothing to say on the construction of a new Circuit House but the administration should looking for alternative lands in the same locality where many outsiders were illegally grabbing khas lands, instead of "forceful acquisition of the land of tribal people". He also said that hundreds bighas of khas lands were under illegal occupation by people coming from outside in the Gaurang riverine areas but nothing had been done by the district administration.
"Why does the government keep eyes only on tribal land for any construction of purposes?" he said, and added that the Kokrajhar district administration had even failed to reclaim the 5 bighas of government land belonging to the Water Resources department at Patharghat near Gaurang River which had been illegally occupied.
Working president of BJSM, DD Narzary, while talking to this reporter, said the district administration, Kokrajhar had been trying to capture the tribal land by violating the clause 7.2 of the BTR accord where the permission of land acquisition is accorded only by the council. "This is nothing but a systematic land grabbing of tribal lands and the Mancha strongly opposes the move," he said.
He also said the tribal people not to tolerate on such systematic land aggression on tribal land and asked the district administration to evict illegal settlers on tribal lands first instead of grabbing land from indigenous tribal people.
Also Watch: CLEAN-RATION-CARD DRIVE: 58 Lakh Ration Cards in State Now