Land-grab cases: police of little help, allege 3 NRIs

Wednesday, 12/11/2014

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CHANDIGARH: Nirmal Sidhu from Canada is again in Punjab in less than four months, to save his 10 acres of agricultural land near Moga, where the local police have allegedly failed in restraining the mafia from grabbing his land once again.

If his raising the issue with senior NRI wing police officials here in June-July helped him get possession of the land, it was trouble for him again with the revenue officials straightaway omitting his name from the land record during this season’s ‘girdawri’ (revision of the land records).

Nirmal’s approach to a nearby police station to lodge a fresh FIR under section 420 of the IPC against the revenue officials proved futile last week as the cops asked him to drop an application “for an inquiry”, he said at a press conference here on Tuesday.

At present, the “culprits” now possess Nirmal’s 10 acres, flaunting the fresh ‘girdawri’ in the name of Mohinder Singh, who boasts his closeness to NRI minister Tota Singh.

HT had reported the matter in June after which senior police officials from Chandigarh had to reach Badni Kalan village to enable Nirmal plough his land for paddy.

IG Gurpreet Deo, heading the NRI wing, told HT that she would take up the matter with the local police to register a case against the officials concerned “if Nirmal lodges a formal complaint at the NRI police station”.

Patwari Sukhjinder Singh, whose signatures the fresh ‘girdawri’ bears with Nirmal’s name replaced by Mohinder, told HT on phone that he had looked at the computer record. He, however, averted the query on how two ‘girdawris’ of kharif and rabi seasons of 2013-14 existed with different names.

PHAGWARA CASE

Two more NRIs — Jatinder Singh from Phagwara and Joginder Kaur Sandhu from Ludhiana — also joined the press conference, narrating their vows in getting their assets back. They lamented that “the state-sponsored NRI Sabha” and even the intervention of the Punjab Police NRI wing had not borne fruit for them.

Jatinder has been shuttling between Chandigarh and Phagwara for the last three months for getting police protection for the revenue officials and for him for the demarcation of the land that he possesses on the revenue records but which is in the possession of some locals boasting political links.

His letter to the Kapurthala SSP for getting the demarcation done under police protection had not yielded result.

Only one person has been arrested in Jatinder’s land grab case while others were “absconding”, as per the police version. “We are on the job, and I will submit an inquiry report within a week,” said AIG Tulsi Ram, when contacted on phone.

IG Gurpreet Deo said she was apprised of the case and would act after getting the inquiry report from the AIG.

Jatinder named Pardeep Kumar and four others for boasting their contacts with Markfed chairman and SAD leader Jarnail Singh Wahid. Pardeep had allegedly led a group of goons and stopped the revenue officials from demarcating the land so that the possession was not given back to Jatinder, as per the revenue record.

Jatinder told reporters that Pardeep had illegally occupied his farmhouse.

Joginder Kaur has been fighting for the possession of her house illegally occupied in Ludhiana since 2005. She said the FIR lodged at the Sarabha Nagar police station had not yielded any result. She said a false case was registered against her allegedly at the behest of those occupying her house, but she was later acquitted. “But, no action has been taken against the cops for registering the false case, for which I even remained in prison,” she added.

Joginder was in France with her family when she lost her house in Ludhiana to the grabbers.