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Maoists ‘endorsed’ 12,000 land dealings

NEPALGUNJ, JAN 19 -
The UCPN (Maoist)’s Revolutionary Council brokered more than 12,000 land and property deals in five mid-western districts during the insurgency, a Maoist source said.

Many of these transactions took place under duress, wherein the sellers were unsatisfied with the price they received for their pieces of land and houses. During the insurgency, the districts of Rolpa, Rukum, Salyan, Jajarkot and Kalikot were well-known Maoist strongholds, and the party had apparently proscribed the people of these districts from having recourse to the land revenue offices whenever they wished to sell a piece of land or their house. It was made mandatory that all the dealings pertaining to the sale of properties take place under the Maoists’ supervision. The party charged Rs 500-700 per transaction, raking in more than six million rupees.

The government recently decided to give legitimacy to the Maoist-administered property dealings, and already people from different quarters have raised their voice of dissent saying that the move had followed pressure on the Maoist party from the

people left without the government-issued property ownership documents.

Maoist Politburo member Haribhakta Kandel said the people were not in a state of visiting the district headquarters to obtain property ownership documents from the land revenue office during the insurgency and urged everyone not to take the government decision otherwise.

“The rural regions were under the Maoist rule during the insurgency. The property dealings that took place with the Maoist party as the witness, therefore, should not be misconstrued by anyone.

The party-issued property ownership documents should get legitimacy. This will assist the ongoing peace process.”

In Kalikot, the Maoists had set up two councils to oversee property dealings during the conflict. Karna Bahadur Bhandari, former council chairman, said the party had issued 150 land registration documents in the north-western VDCs of Kalikot, including Mehelmudi, Mumra, Syuna, Sipkhana, Phukot, Malkot, Rupsa, Kumalgaon and Lalu. Similarly, 153 land registrations were documented by the Maoists in the eastern Kalikot VDCs and some parts of Jumla district. Kalikot District Land Revenue Office, meanwhile, has no statistics whatsoever on the property dealings or registration that took place under Maoist supervision. 

In Salyan, the Maoists had issued as many as 500 land ownership documents in one VDC alone. In some cases, it has been found that the actual property owner was either kept in the dark or forced to sell off their land and house. It has been learnt that the Maoists issued around 5,000 property ownership documents in the district.

“I never agreed to sell my land but I was told that the transaction had already taken place. I never received any money,” complained Bhimi Chalaune of Chande VDC.

Kriti Bahadur Basnet of Shibaratha VDC said that the Maoists captured his house and handed him some papers that read his property has been sold.  “They have not returned my house. They tell me that it has already been sold.”

Claiming that the Maoists forced the people to sell their properties during the insurgency, Damodar Sharma, vice chairman of CPN-UML, Salyan, said that providing legitimacy to such dealings cannot be accepted.

“Many people were forced to sell their properties at low prices and leave their villages. Who is going to consider such cases?”

Rolpa district leadership of the Maoists has, meanwhile, urged the party to grant legitimacy to around 2,000 land ownership documents issued by the Maoist Council during the conflict.  “After the government asked for the details of property dealings, we are studying if there are any more cases,” said Raj Kumar Kakshapati, joint in charge of the UCPN (Maoist), Rolpa.

Rolpa District Revenue Office, however, said it cannot give recognition to the property dealings carried out by the Maoists.

“We’ve received many applications in this regard in the past and we’ve been referring them to the higher authority, as it is not under our jurisdiction to decide such cases,” said Hemraj Acharya of the office.

In Jajarkot, complaints are rife among many who bought properties during the insurgency. Without the government-issued property ownership documents, they said, they do not have the real right over the land they had bought.

Tej Bahadur Chand of the District Land Revenue Office said that in such cases the sellers could easily procure the ownership documents for their undocumented sold properties merely by writing application to the office telling that the ownership papers were lost.

In Jajarkot, the Maoists issued more than 1,000 property ownership documents, said Pratap Jaisi, Maoist district secretary.

 (With inputs from Tularam Pandey, Biplav Maharjan, Kashiram Dangi and Bhim Bahadur Singh)

Posted on: 2012-01-20 08:14

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