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Latifpura demolition: Officials fail to submit record, report with SC panel
The officials of local government, Jalandhar district administration and improvement trust have failed to submit report as sought by the National Commission for Scheduled Castes in New Delhi regarding action taken report and arrangements made for rehabilitation of Latifpura affected families.
The officials of local government, Jalandhar district administration and improvement trust have failed to submit report as sought by the National Commission for Scheduled Castes in New Delhi regarding action taken report and arrangements made for rehabilitation of Latifpura affected families.
The commission directed state government’s senior officials to submit the record and report with commission by March 7 related to the matter.
On Tuesday, senior officials of local government department, Jalandhar improvement trust and Jalandhar’s deputy commisioner of police visited New Delhi at commission office.
On December 9, Jalandhar improvement trust carried demolition process and nearly 50 residential structures were razed to ground to get possession of its 241 marlas of land situated in the middle of town. The whole activity largely affected around 30 families, who were claiming to be settled on this particular piece of land post Partition.
The demolition process created political storm in Punjab then as the opposition parties and farmers unions cornered AAP for its “insensitive” approach in handling the issue.
Meanwhile, SC panel chairman Vijay Sampla said the officials representing the state government have once again failed to provide any record to substantiate whole demolition process.
“Moreover, there is no report and action plan on how, when and where the affected families will be rehabilitated. The officials came and informed verbally about their plans for relocating genuinely affected families but there is nothing on paper,” Sampla said. He added that the officials informed that the process of submitting report and record was delayed due to ongoing session of Vidhan Sabha. “They have been directed to submit all requisite documents by next hearing i.e April 10,” the chairman said.
However, the deadlock continues to persist between Latifpura rehabilitation Committee and improvement trust for three months as the victim families are demanding state government to rehabilitate them on the same piece of land, while the administration is offering already constructed flats at some other locations.
Tarsem Peter, one of the activists of Latifpura rehabilitation Committee, said they want administration to relocate affected families on same piece of land.
“We are not going to move till our demands are fulfilled,” he said.
The families had lost legal battle in the Supreme Court back in 2012 but since then the respective governments including SAD-BJP government in 2012 and Congress in 2017 remained reluctant to take any action.
