Protest over cultivation of land in Pong Lake Wildlife Sanctuary

In a bid to oppose cultivation in the restricted area of the Pong Lake Wildlife Sanctuary, women of the neighbouring Gatuthar village assembled in large numbers to lodge their protest. They raised objections over involvement of select influential people in fencing and sowing on land in the area where cultivation was banned.

Women raised slogans against the Wildlife Department for remaining a mute spectator to illegal activities in the core sanctuary area. It seems that villagers have opened a front against the state government, the Wildlife Department and the administration for allowing cultivation on the land despite ban. The protesters gathered near the lake at the point of confluence of the Baner river near Haripur.

Protesters claimed that well to do people, who were indulging in large scale farming, were not even dam oustees, who were displaced from this sanctuary.

“Not an inch of this land has been cultivated after the construction of the Pong dam. The government is not letting marginal farmers, who are original owners of small land holdings, to plough their ancestral fields. All this is happening in connivance with officials of the Wildlife Department,” alleged Mahinder Chaudhary of Gatuthar village.

Sensing trouble, the Forest Department personnel also reached the protest site to pacify women protesters who were openly blaming officials for giving a silent consent to the mafia to plough the land where cultivation was totally banned.

Nagrota Surian Range Officer Kamal Kishore said, “Farming on the lake shore is prohibited. No one will be allowed to cultivate the land.” He warned that if anyone was found cultivating land in the prohibited area, his tractor-trailer would be impounded and a case would be registered against him. However, he had no clue as to how and when a large chunk of land was fenced and ploughed near the lake.