Villagers stopped in Karnal on their way to CM office in UT

Parveen Arora

Tribune News Service

Karnal, September 26

Hundreds of residents of Kalram, Ariapura, Bharatpur, Amritpur Kalan and Lalupura villages today set out for the Chief Minister’s office in Chandigarh.

They demand cancellation of chakbandi (demarcation of land) during land consolidation in 1999.

With their houses locked and belongings loaded in tractor-trailers, their plan was to protest outside the CM’s house. But the administration stopped them in their tracks near Jat Dharamsala on the National Highway-1.

In the evening, the villagers returned home on SDM Yogesh Kumar’s assurance of a meeting with Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar in Karnal on Tuesday.

Pardeep from Kalram village said villagers had been running from pillar to post for justice, but no one was paying heed to their concern.

In 1965, land was consolidated and registered in their names. In a similar exercise in 1999, “revenue officials made wrong entries in records. As a result, we lost ownership of the land,” one of the villagers claimed.

“The matter was investigated into and it came out officials had made wrong entries. Land was snatched away from us during land consolidation. Some unscrupulous revenue officials in connivance with land mafia changed girdawari in April 1999,” said Sunil Chopra, another protester.

They have petitioned all and sundry, including Khattar who assured them justice.

The SDM said the matter was pending in the court of Rohtak Range Commissioner.