Polarh (Kaithal), November 8
Aged Daulat Ram who settled in this village after migrating from Pakistan after the Partition is worried a lot. He is again living with the fear of displacement.
His case is not an isolated one. The 8500-odd residents of this village, nearly 90 per cent of who migrated during the Partition, are living with the same fear for the last week.
The ASI (Archaeological Survey of India) made an announcement last week which forbade the villagers to construct or repair their houses and to cultivate any agricultural land in the village.
The ASI will demarcate and fence its land situated in and around the village on Tuesday, said Mr B.B. Koul, Hisar-based Conservative Assistant of the ASI while talking to The Tribune on phone.
Mr Koul said that as much as 48 acres of land in and around Polarh village belonged to the ASI. This land had historical background as the Saraswati river had flowed through this village. The village is situated on nearly 11 acres of the ASI land and its remaining land was lying vacant, he added.
Meanwhile, villagers have formed the Polarh Bachao Sanghrash Samiti to spearhead their movement.
When contacted, Chandigarh-based Superintendent Archaeologist (SA) of ASI, Mr K.P.S. Bhadoria, did not rule out the possibility of asking the villagers to vacate its land.
Mr Bhadoria said that the entire land had been declared as protected. However, he refused to comment on other questions including possible excavation of the land for finding historical remains.
Mr Baldev Singh, president of the action committee, admitted that they did not have any documents about the ownership of the land. At the same time, he said that they had been living on this land for the past six decades after the Partition and no one had raised any question.
Dilbagh Singh, an active member of the action committee, said that the government also recognised this village as state and union governments had provided several crores rupees to the village for carrying out different development works.
Aged Surat Singh said that a number of refugee families had not been allotted any land for several months. They came to know about a vacant jungle here and started living in 1948, he said adding, that they would prefer to die instead of leaving this village.
Echoing his sentiments, Sarpanch Satinder Kaur’s husband Balraj Singh demanded that the government should allot this land to the villagers as other refugees had been allotted the land.
