Land mafia now targeting potters' land at Hajo

BY OUR STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI, Nov 3: With city limits expanding rapidly and real estate business booming, land prices are shooting up by the day. This in turn is bringing in its wake land mafias and anti-social elements grabbing lands in cahoots with corrupt elements in the State administration. In one such latest incident, anti-social elements are now allegedly trying to illegally sell a plot of land allotted to the potter community of Hajo long back by the British.

The Britishers had allotted 37 bighas, 3 kathas and 11 lechas of land near Haigrib Madhab Mandir of Hajo to potters long settled there. The dag number of the plot in question is 1415. Since then, the potter community has been making earthen lamps and other products in that particular plot. These earthen products are widely used in the temple as well as in the households of Hajo.

However, soon after Independence in 1948, another community tried to encroach upon the potters’ land. When the potter community filed a complaint with the circle officer of Kamalpur, he ruled in favour of the complaint and affirmed that the plot in question belongs to the complaint. Later the plot was assigned land patta number 1000, earmarking the plot as that of potters’ community living near Hajo.

The All Assam Kumar Sanmilan also met the then Kamrup Deputy Commissioner Dr J Balaji in 2014 with a plea to safeguard the plot from anti-social elements. Dr Balaji then instructed the circle officer of Hajo Revenue Circle not to issue approval to sell the land.

However, even after all these developments, the anti-social elements are now trying hard to sell the land illegally. The All Assam Kumar Sanmilan, which is an umbrella body of the potter community, has taken serious note of this and has urged the authorities concerned to take action against the conspirators.