Hyderabad: In a shocker from Kumuram Bheem Asifabad district, the forest officials tried to stake control over farmers’ lands by digging up the land using excavators in Pulasa village of Jainoor mandal.
An undated video of the incident came to light on Friday, June 26, where several forest officials could be seen lined-up for taking up plantation in what the farmers were claiming, was their land for which they had title deeds.
When the forest officials tried to run an excavator in the land, the farmers belonging to the Muslim community resisted, and sat in front of the excavator, as the last resort to save their lands.
“Our grandparents and parents spent their entire lives by depending on this land. We and our children are dependent on this land. If this land is taken away from us, there will be nothing left for us to survive,” one of the farmers could be seen telling the forest officials.
“We only want what is our land we have been cultivating for the past 50 years. We don’t need anything more than that,” another farmer could be seen telling the forest officials.
The farmer said that he and his family members were ready to die, to protect their land. The farmers also showed what they claimed, were title deeds given to them before 2019.
However, a forest official could be seen claiming that the trees in the land were forest trees, and that the land belonged to the forest department. He told the farmers that if they disputed the forest department’s claim, they could take the legal recourse.
On contacting Jainoor Mandal Revenue Officer (MRO) A Bheersha, he told Siasat.com that he was not aware of any such dispute in the village. He, however, said that the land could have belonged to the forest department, the reason why they may have taken such an action.
When asked what would be the appropriate procedure in such cases where there were differing claims of the land either being the revenue land or forest land, he told Siasat.com that he needed to verify the revenue records from the village before making any statement.
Repeated calls made to reach Kumuram Bheem Asifabad District Forest Officer Ch Balamani went unanswered.
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