Excelsior Correspondent
PALLANWALLA, (Line of Control), Nov 13: Army today handed over about 37 acres of demined farmland to the villagers in the Akhnoor belt along the Line of Control (LoC) in this area.
The possession of the land, that was used by Army to lay minefields during the operation Vijay of 1999, was handed over to the farmers along the Line of Control.
The handing over of the farmland ceremony was presided over by the General Officer in Command (GOC) of the 10 division, Maj Gen Kulpreet Singh and Deputy Commissioner Jammu Simrandeep Singh besides several senior officers of the Army and civil administration.
“The people of Jammu and Kashmir have always been extending their unflinching support to the Army and have always worked shoulder to shoulder to ensure the security and sanctity of the State”, Maj Gen Kulpreet Singh said while addressing the people at the occasion.
“During ‘Operation Vijay’, keeping in line with the traditions of the region, the border villagers of Akhnoor had contributed certain piece of their farmland for the security of the region for laying of mines. The land which was their only means of livelihood was handed over to the Army with a lot of humility and patriotic feelings in 1999″, he added.
He said that the Army has taken up the issue of providing compensation to the farmers whose land has been taken for laying the minefields with the relevant authorities.
“We are hopeful that the issue of providing these farmers with compensation would soon be resolved”, Maj Gen Singh said.
He said that post operation ‘Parakram’, the Army decided that certain portion of the land will be demined and returned to the farmers, which included 365 acres of land at Channi Dewanum and Dhar area and 36 acres of land at Budhwal and 417 acres of land Dhar village, that was handed over to the villagers in 2010.
“However, after handing over the land, some farmers in the Dhar and Channi Dewanum areas informed the Army that their cattle was injured while grazing in the demined land, so they requested the Army to once again demine the land, which was done for the villagers”, he said.
Maj Gen Singh said that the Army undertook the operation to once again demine the 37 acres of land in the Channi Dewanum village along the LoC.
“The operation was started in May 2015 in which one officer, one JCO and 20 soldiers were deployed to demine the farmland. Total of 6000 man hours of hard work over a period of six months was undertaken, heavy machinery was also deployed for the purpose”, he said.
Later while speaking to the media Maj Gen Kulpreet Singh said that the Army decided to demine the farmland after taking into consideration all the security related aspects of the area.
“The decision was taken after taking into consideration all the security related aspects and we had identified these patches of land after operation Parakram and no further demining of any land will be undertaken”, he said.
Earlier, Deputy Commiss-ioner, Jammu Simrandeep Singh said that more than 30,000 acres of land in the district was under active minefields.
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