Saroj Kr. Rawani

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This video started with a bunch of farmers protesting against the Forest Department. They are raising their voice to preserve their land and livelihood. The matter is serious - in Jatrahi village under Sikid village council of Chatra Block, Chatra District of Jharkhand, 25 families of Bhuyan community were living for 70 years and they are asked to relocate.

Without informing them, a month earlier, the Forest Department came by and dug trenches in their farmlands and planted trees. The clueless villagers, when protested, high-handedly The Forest Department filed Police cases on them and sent 7 of them to jail. The Forest Department is asking them to evict the land otherwise they will use force to break their houses and send them away from that area. 

It was so sudden and arbitrary that the villagers were sloganeering to request the forest department to come to their senses. The villagers were there in the area for the last 70 years, farming and raising their family. According to the Forest Rights Act 2006 there is a provision for families who built houses, farmed on forest land and were earning their livelihood from or before 13th December 2005, can get the ownership of that land by the Government. 

But these people have not got the ownership of the land they have been living on. They are marginal farmers without any resources or ability to move places or to start their life anew. Community Correspondent Saroj Kumar Revani is helping them to file a complaint against this move and writing applications to concerned authorities. Please share this video, so that this land ownership conflict of villages near the forest areas are eliminated for once and for all.