Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Aug 18: Inhabitants of village Gandharwan led by war widow, Santosh Kumari blocked construction work of a boundary wall by the MES for the Army Air-Base and protested against revenue authorities for not solving their outstanding issue of entry route to their land.
The villagers said that only path to their land was earlier through a ‘Bandobasti Gali’ in the revenue records but when local farmers started using vacant army land for their movement to and fro to other villages and entry into their land, some influential people encroached the ‘Bandobasti Gali’, finding that it is not being used.
They said that the boundary wall now being constructed by the army will block farmers’ entry to their land and passage of locals for movement to various villages which earlier was through the ‘Bandobasti Gali’. They alleged that they approached DC Jammu and SDM Akhnoor for getting the encroached ‘Gali’ vacated but nothing has been done so far.
They demanded the Army to get the passage cleared to enable them cultivate their left over land, the rest having been taken by the army for the Air-Base. Army officers who visited the site gave assurance that their genuine problem will be looked into and got resolved through revenue authorities. Till then they agreed to suspend the construction work so that villagers could harvest their crop.
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