Farmers protest govt move to displace them
Tuesday, 24/07/2012
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2012/20120724/punjab.htm#2
A large number of farmers under banner of the Jamhuri Kisan Sabha and the Kirti Kisan Union today gathered outside the SDM’s office to protest against the Forest Department’s move to get agricultural land vacated which farmers of this border belt have been cultivating for decades.
Addressing the protesters, Punjab CPM secretary Mangat Ram Pasla said the then state government had allotted the land to these farmers in 1960s for producing foodgrain and promised them that they would be given the ownership rights. The farmers had made the barren land fertile after years of hard work and the government now wanted to take away their livelihood, he added. Kirti Kisan Union leader Datar Singh said it was injustice with farmers of the border belt as they had had been cultivating this land for over five decades. He claimed Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal had promised the farmers the ownership rights of this land after the formation of the SAD-BJP government, but now he was “backtracking”.
Jamhuri Kisan Sabha president Satnam Singh Ajnala and Border Area Sangharsh Committee general secretary Ratan Singh Randhawa also lashed out at the state government for initiating the move, which they claimed would deprive over 2,000 small and marginal farmers of their livelihood. Later, the farmer leaders handed over a charter of demands to the SDM.
