40 Indora families face eviction

Lalit Mohan

Dharamsala, February 17

About 40 families of Gujjars and Scheduled Castes community have received eviction notice from the revenue department in Surawan panchayat in Indora of Kangra district. These families were settled on village common lands that were now classified as forestland.

Member of Zila Parishad Kangra, Ravinder Kumar today handed over a petition to DC, Kangra, Nipun Jindal alleging that the families which had received eviction notice were being victimised.

In a letter to the DC, Zila Parishad member alleged that the families were settled on common land of their villages which was later classified as forest land. He alleged that the claims of the families were pending before forest right committee formed under the Forest Rights Act 2006 and they should not be evicted from common land. He also said that the Gujjar families had pastural rights over common lands of villages and should not be barred for temporarily keeping the animals on forest land. The Deputy Commissioner said that he would look into the petition.

Sources here revealed that the department had issued eviction notices after a communal strife in the area. Some right wing activists had alleged that members of minority community had killed a cow. Postmortem on the cow corpse was conducted on the orders of district administration which indicated that the cow had died of natural causes.

However, despite the postmortem report. right wing activists demanded eviction of Gujjars from the common lands. After their protest the revenue department has issued eviction notices to all those who were residing on common or forestlands in Surawan panchayat.

A large number of SC families were residing on common lands in villages in Kangra district have become encroachers after all the common lands in the district were converted into forest lands. The district administration had written to settlement office in Kangra to correct the revenue record under which homes of about 100 Pong Dam oustees on village common lands were classified as forest lands.

DC assurance to Gujjar, SC families

• Gujjar and SC families were allegedly settled on common land of their villages which was later classified as forestland
• Their claims were pending before forest right committee
• The DC assured them that he would look into the matter