Excelsior Correspondent
SAMBA, Mar 20: Fresh encroachments have surfaced on JDA land at Sarore Adda in Bari Brahmana tehsil of Samba district where a clash took place between police and nomadic Gujjars on February 22 this year while the JDA team and revenue officials were demarcating the State land allotted to JDA by the Government.
The tehsildar Bari Brahmana in a recent letter to the SHO Bari Brahmana has asked him to keep the vigil personally and ensure that no construction takes place at the JDA land till further orders by the higher authorities.
The Tehsildar in his letter has also mentioned that some nomads have started fresh construction in the area on the land falling under Khasra number 1085 and 1042 situated at Village Meen Sarkar in Bari Brahmana tehsil.
When contacted DC Samba, Sheetal Nanda said that some people have started constructing the temporary structures on the land and they have referred the matter to JDA and Department is waiting for the action of JDA.
However V C JDA Mubarak Singh said that the land was not vacated from encroachers on February 22 when the JDA team along with Revenue authorities visited the area for demarcation after the unfortunate clash took place in the area and one person lost his life.
He said due to law and order situation which had arisen on February 22 the anti encroachment drive was stopped and land has not been handed over to JDA by the Revenue authorities as yet.
Mr Singh said that he had deputed a team of officials for handing over taking over of the land on that day and when the demarcation process was on unfortunate incident took place in the area and this process was stopped.
He said in view of fresh encroachments by the people, he will depute a team led by Director Land Management to the area for verification.
Tehsildar Bari Brahmana said that the land was allotted to JDA but it had not taken the physical possession of the same till date. He said after the February 22 incident he came to know that fresh encroachment had started in the area. He deputed a team and served notices to the encroachers which they refused to take. Hence he wrote a letter to SHO Bari Brahmana asking him to ensure that no fresh encroachment takes place in the area.
It may be recalled that after the death of one person on February 22 clash when a police party was attacked by land grabbers who also snatched one SLR from a cop and fired indiscriminately, the SHO Bari Brahmana, Bharat Sharma was made a scapegoat by the administration and placed under suspension- for his only fault that he gave police protection to officials in removing the encroachments in the area.
According to sources the leniency shown by the administration towards the land grabbers has emboldened them to such an extent that under the very nose of police and administration they started fresh encroachments in the area.
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