FEROZEPORE, Dec 3 — Accusing the police of helping influential persons in taking possession of land near the Indo-Pakistan border, tillers and Congress workers have threatened to take to the streets.

The tillers of at least eight villages near the international border have charged the police with helping politically well-connected families in evicting them from the land they have been cultivating for years. The resentful tillers of Khunder Gatti, Gulam Hussian Wala, Kunde, Ali Ke, Habib Be, Nihala Kilcha, Gandu Kilcha and Deh villages have charged the Revenue Department of “arbitrarily” allotting the land to outsiders, without rehabilitating them.

They have complained to the Chief Minister and the Deputy Commissioner on two occasions.

They admit that they are not owners of the land that belongs to the Central Government, but demand rehabilitation before being evicted.

The Congress leader, Maj Harminder Singh Bhullar, also charges the police of meddling in civil matters to “please political masters.’’

In a complaint addressed to the Chief Minister, Mr Raj Singh, sarpanch of Khunder Gatti village, has categorically charged the police with helping “friends” of an Akali Dal minister in “dispossessing” the tillers of his village and that of Gulam Hussain Wala, Kunde, Ali Ke and Habib Ke.

He has accused the DSP, Mr Joginder Kumar Sharma, and SHO Balbir Singh of evicting the tillers with the help of force. He has alleged that the police “is neither willing to listen to their side of the story, nor record their statement.”

Likewise, Dalip Singh, a resident of Nihala Kilcha village, has alleged that he and six more, who had been tilling a piece of the Central Government land near the border since 1965, are being evicted with the help of the police by relatives of the Chief Minister.

He claims that despite the fact that the court has served a notice of motion on their petition in the matter and stalled their dispossession, the CM’s relatives, Dr Shivinder Kaur Johal and her son Jayjeet Singh, are trying to take possession of the land by using police force.

He says three of the tillers were illegally detained at the Sadar Police Station at the behest of the CM’s relatives.

Terming these incidents as violations of human rights, Major Bhullar has demanded that the police be restrained from meddling in civil matters and let the courts and revenue departments decide the fate of the tillers.

However, the Superintendent of Police (Headquarters), Mr N.P.S. Sidhu, when contacted, said the police had to intervene in these cases to prevent a law and order problem. Denying political pressure, he said in both cases, the police had received complaints of threat from the allottees against the unauthorised tillers.