Khap intervenes to resolve land dispute

Deepender Deswal

Tribune News Service

Hisar, November 29

The khap panchayat mediated between a Dalit and an upper caste families in Mujadpur village here today. They got engaged in police cases after a clash over a piece of shamlat land in the village.

The Satbas khap panchayat presided over by Dhara Singh today called both groups for a meeting and listened to their complaints.

The family members of Dalit victim Ramdhari and those of upper caste youth Manoj attended the meeting.

Both families, however, defended them while expressing their readiness for resolving the dispute amicably at the instance of the panchayat. Ramdhari objected to the registration of the FIR by the upper caste family, who accused seven members of his family of assaulting their woman.

The panchayat, however, asked Ramdhari to suggest five names to set up a committee to discuss the issue but the upper caste family objected to some names.

However, Ramdhari’s son Ashok Kumar in a statement later in the evening stated that the panchayat remained inconclusive. “Some persons tried to pressurise us but we have made it clear that we will not budge under any kind of pressure,” he added.

Ashok alleged that the accused youth had barged into his house on November 21 and thrashed his father Ramdhari with a stick and also tried to put cow dung in his mouth.

The police, however, said the two families had a dispute over a piece of shamlat land and both wanted to use the land to store heap of cow dung cakes. This led to a clash between the women folk of the two families after which both groups lodged police complaints against each other. The police had registered cases against both the groups and were investigating the issue.