* Locals gather at Ponda Martyrs Memorial at Kranti Maidan for justice
* Fear losing their land for not recording in land survey records.
Goemkarponn desk
PONDA: The tribal farmers’ families in Ponda, with the support of Revolutionary Goan, protested yesterday evening at Martyrs Memorial at Kranti Maidan against the landlord selling their land to a migrant.
They gathered at Ponda Martyrs Memorial at Kranti Maidan for justice.
Aged farmer Shelavati Gaude at Nallem Querim said since the past two years, a Jharkhand-based migrant has harassed her and six other families.
She said migrants started high-handedness by bringing JCB and excavation machinery into their land and also got material for fencing the one lakh square meter property they owned.
The Jharkhand man said he had purchased the entire one lakh square meter land. Following this, she, along with locals, filed a complaint with Ponda Police two days back, and it was revealed that the landlord had conducted a sale deed of 4000 square meters of land in their possession and the Jharkhand-based man was trying to fence the entire property and thus this is the tactic adopted by the landlord to grab their land.
Galwada Usgao-based Bindiya Gaude and Nyaneshwar Gaude had a similar story. They said the twelve families have six lakh square meters of land cultivating; however, the landlord had conducted a sale deed of two lakh square meters of land. The landlord also asks the twelve families to leave from the remaining land they have.
She said they had no money to fight court cases nor to pay the fees of advocates, and thus government gave them justice by initiating procedures to record their properties in their names by conducting probes.
The Local RG leader social activist Premanand Gaude, Vishwesh Naik and Dinesh Naik assured to stage agitation on the issue.
Around seven tribal families from Nallem Querim and twelve from Galwada Usgao pointed out that there is an attempt to grab the land in their possession and cultivated for more than a hundred years and inherited through forefathers. The families said despite there being tenancy and agricultural acts in force, the government had not initiated any procedure to record their names in tenant columns, and so the landlord started selling a portion of their lands to migrants, thus depriving them of their land, which they are in possession since more than century.
They said the ST and OBC Ministers in Ponda should voice against injustice in the assembly and protect their land from sale deeds to migrants.
The farmers said 60 years passed for liberation; where is their freedom and right to land? Says landlords threaten to vacate/leave the several lakh square meters of land in possession.
They demanded that government give justice to them by recording lands in their names which they are cultivating by initiating procedure/ laws in assembly.
They expressed Fear of losing their land for not recording in land survey records. They demanded justice from the government against injustice by landlords.
The farmers said though they were tilling and cultivating the land in their possession, they were not recorded in their name and being illiterate, they were unaware of the procedure to register their names in land survey records. Taking advantage of it, the landlords recorded in the ownership column started conducting sale deeds of their land.
Those purchasing the grounds, especially migrants, threaten to vacate the land, and thus they fear losing the land they inherited from forefathers from generation to generation.
