Tilling land for six decades, Amritsar farmers fear eviction

Manmeet Singh Gill

Amritsar, May 5

The Panchayat Department has initiated efforts to evict at least 23 farmers from Sahowal village, near the international border with Pakistan, from nearly 83 acres being cultivated by them for over six decades.

The residents of the village said the then Punjab Chief Minister Partap Singh Kairon has encouraged them to develop wastelands for cultivation as the country was facing shortage of food grains. The residents claimed that the department tried to use mild force a few days ago to evict the farmers, which was resisted by them.

Dr Satnam Singh Ajnala, president, Jamhoori Kisan Sabha, said: “After recent announcements by the state government to reclaim government land under illegal occupation, the Panchayat Department is again trying to remove the farmers from the land.”

Ajnala said during the India-China war, the then Chief Minister Partap Singh Kairon had exhorted the farmers to use wastelands and forest land for agriculture.

He said as the task of clearing the forests was not easy, the people had asked Kairon to give them ownership rights of the land. “Unfortunately Kairon was killed before he could grant ownership rights to them,” said Ajnala.

“A protest will be held against the state government and any move to remove the farmers forcibly from the land will be resisted. For most of these families, this land is the only source of their livelihood,” Dr Ajnala said.

The residents of the area said nearly 10,000 acres of land in the area, especially alongside the border and the river, was cultivated by the people who were either landless or had small landholdings.

Rashpal Singh, a resident of Sahowal, said: “The farmers are tilling this land before land consolidation was done in the state in 1962.” He claimed that legally too, the Panchayat Department has no right over the land.

“The farmers are not encroachers. They are settlers who have made the land productive. On an average, they are tilling three to four acres per family,” he said, adding that farmers unions were supporting their claim over the land.

‘Will resist any move to remove farmers’

A protest will be held against the state government and any move to remove the farmers forcibly from the land will be resisted. For most of these families, this land is the only source of their livelihood. — Dr Satnam Singh Ajnala, president, Jamhoori Kisan Sabha.