Land mafia trying to grab Adivasi land in north Bengal tea gardens, says Raju Bista

On August 21 nearly 150 tribal families was surrounded by criminals from all sides and attacked, burned 12 houses, sprayed bullets from guns and pellet guns and threw bombs

Raju Bista in a Chopra village where Adivasi people were allegedly rendered homeless in an attack by the land mafia on Aug 21 

PRASHANT ACHARYA, EOI, SILIGURI, AUGUST 28, 2023 : BJP M. P. of Darjeeling Raju Bista on Monday visited the Adivasi Busty in Pyarelal Tea Estate in the Chopra Block of Uttar Dinajpur District. After a meeting with permanent workers of the tea garden, he told reporters that all the workers belonging to the Adivasi community were facing attempts to oust them forcibly by an organized land mafia sheltered by the ruling party in West Bengal. 

He said the Adivasi people had bene living in the garden since the time of their ancestors; for generations living in small huts built near the plantations. 

In the recent times, however, these lands near the plantations have been usurped by the land mafia who are enjoying the full administrative support of the ruling party in the state. the MLAs and the local administration. 

Villagers informed the M.P. how the village consisting of nearly 150 tribal families was surrounded by criminals from all sides and attacked on August 21. 

The criminals burned 12 houses, sprayed bullets from guns and pellet guns and threw bombs at them. Thirteen villagers were seriously injured due to gunshot wounds. Many of them were still undergoing treatment at the North Bengal Medical College Hospital. They looted majority of the houses, and taking advantage of the commotion even molested helpless women and children.

The condition of women and children who had been rendered displaced from their homes was extremely worrisome. They were traumatized, living in temporary shelters, and did not have access to basic facilities. The criminals did this in order to evict the Adivasi families from their homes, so that the land could be grabbed and sold. 

Villagers also informed him that the majority of those who were being newly settled in these areas might not even be citizens of the country. Rather, they were cross- border infiltrators who were being settled in the sensitive "Chicken Neck" region to ensure a "demographic shift." Villagers complained that these land mafia were getting foreign funding and settling the infiltrators in traditional Adivasi land. 

After talking to villagers, Bista told reporters that all of this was happening right under the nose of the police, who had turned a blind eye to the plight of the Adivasi community. 

He said what had happened in Chopra was extremely worrisome, with implications for tea garden workers in entire north Bengal. The ruling state government was refusing to give parya Patta to the tea garden workers, enabling the land mafia to grab as much land as possible. Gradually, the Trinamool congress government was in the process of selling off tea garden land to the land mafia at throwaway prices. 

“I am worried that soon all of north Bengal tea garden workers will face bullets like this. The Trinamool Congress land mafia is not interested in tea gardens. They are not interested in the welfare of the workers. They are only interested in using the tea garden land for building five-star hotels and high rise buildings. They want to remove the tea garden workers from their ancestral land. 

That is why, we need parya patta rights for all the workers. This is why accepting only five- decimal land is very dangerous, because once the land mafia get in, they will conspire to kick out our people from their ancestral lands using all means necessary.”
The M.P. said he would send an eyewitness report of the situation in Chopra to the President, the Prime Minister, the Union Home Minister, the Governor of West Bengal, the West Bengal Chief Minister and the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes; requesting for their intervention on behalf of the Adivasi families. “We will not allow any more of atrocities against our indigenous people of north Bengal.