Latifpura families' claim a farce, says Jalandhar Improvement Trust Chairman

Tribune News Service

Deepkamal Kaur

Jalandhar, January 20

Most families, who lost their houses in Latifpura during the December 9 demolition, shifted to the area after 2000. Having studied the land records since Latifpura’s acquisition in August 1975, Jagtar Singh Sanghera, Chairman, Jalandhar Improvement Trust (JIT), says the claim of the families having been in Latifpura since Partition is a farce.

TIMELINE

August 6, 1975: JIT acquired Latifpura as a part of its 110 acre Guru Teg Bahadur Nagar

October 18, 1976: JIT took possession of the property

2006: Petition filed by allottee Rabinder Singh for removing encroachments on 120-feet road of Latifpura

August 16, 2012: Punjab and Haryana HC passes order for removing encroachments

December 13, 2012: SLP moved in the Supreme Court dismissed

January 9, 2014: Objections received from the residents by a sub-committee set up on the orders of the high court

November 23, 2022: The high court directed the JIT to remove the encroachments and give compliance report on December 12, 2022

“When the matter regarding eviction of encroachers was being heard, the Punjab and Haryana High Court had in 2014 directed the JIT to seek objections from the occupants. Of the 27 litigants, 18 filed objections. There was no response from the remaining nine.They were given sufficient time to furnish the oldest record of residence proof such as electricity bill or ration card. The oldest record that anyone could show was dated 2000,” he said.

Sanghera said their claim of being here since Partition is a farce. Administrative officials also checked the old documents and found that the 60 per cent of the area, which the JIT had got evacuated, was a sewage pond at the time of acquisition.

To be precise, 16 kanal and 8 marla had a depth of 2 feet to 9 feet and was of extremely inferior quality till 1979-80.

It is also learnt from old city residents that most of the initial settlers were dairy owners. In 2000, the MC had initiated an action to shift all dairies out of the city limits and the dairy owners were provided free land at Jamsher dairy complex. As most of the initial settlers shifted to Jamsher, new occupants came in and encroached upon this property.

It was around this time that some land sharks occupied large chunks of this prime land just along Model Town.

Property dealers like Mohinder Singh Bajwa and Dinesh Dhir, who were occupying 132 of 241 marlas, are learnt to have come in around this time. Bajwa owns more than 22 kanals in Singh village on Nakodar Road, besides a property dealer’s office in posh Model Town area. Both his children are settled in Canada. Dhir, who has been the president of the MC in Sultanpur Lodhi in SAD regime in 2012, owns 429 kanal of properties in Nurmahal and Sultanpur Lodhi (where he has seven rice mills). He had joined AAP last year post Vidhan Sabha poll.

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