From Our Correspondent
Guwahati: Vehicular traffic on Thursday came to a halt in many parts of bustling Guwahati city for hours as thousands of landless farmers stormed the city demanding land and denouncing recent allotment of agriculture land to industrialists at throwaway prices flouting all norms.
Krishak Mukti Sangram Samity (KMSS) led by RTI activist and Team Anna member Akhil Gogoi organised the massive protest rally of landless people from 18 districts of Assam numbering over ten thousand who have poured into the city during the last two days.
They finally gathered in front of the Deputy Commissioner’s office in the heart of the city demanding a positive response from the government to their demands for allotment of land and formulation of a progressive land settlement policy in the State.
The KMSS protestors also demanded CBI investigation into the alleged “mega scandal” related to allotment of thousands of bighas of agriculture land to several industrialists at very low rate and subsequent ‘illegal’ conversion of agriculture land to industrial land by these industrialists.
The KMSS has threatened to stall a mega housing project of one of these industrialists on one such big plot of agriculture land near Guwahati if the government failed to recover that precious plot of land illegally allotted to the industrialist.
The KMSS demonstrators continued to agitate from 10 A.M to about 3-30 P.M registering their vociferous protests.
KMSS general secretary Kamal Medhi said that agricultural land on both sides of the arterial national highways passing through the State had been procured by hook or crook by outside industrialists in connivance with ‘unscrupulous’ officials from the revenue department of the State at the cost of agri sector in the State.
Seeing the fury of the mega protests by the KMSS organised thousands of farmers and villagers, Assam government’s revenue department organised a meeting at the State Secretariat with the KMSS president Akhil Gogoi to discuss the issues raised by the organization, according to an official source.
Coming back to protestors from the meeting the Krishak Mukti Sangram Samity leader coming out of the claimed that he found the attitude of the government positive towards their demand and it promised to formulate a progressive land settlement policy soon and investigate into illegal allotment of agriculture land to industrialists as very low price.
The KMSS leader said the agitation of the landless farmers wont relent unless government accept their demands and provide land to the landless farmers in the State.
