Villagers stage sit-in against leasing out of their land

They said the land along the river is their ancestral property but the district administration and the mines department declared it a riverbed and leased it out to the foreign company which was taking away sand and crushed stones from the area. The river has all along been eroding private land right from Boroghil to Arandu that cannot be declared public property under any law. Moreover, even riverbed cannot be used by any entity for comemrcial purposes. The villagers said they would not tolerate this daylight robbery on their property. On Sunday, District Nazim Maghfirat Shah visited the protesters in front of Town Hall and assured them that no injustice would be done with them. He said that the matter would be taken up with the department concerned to find out a solution to it.—Bashir Hussain AZad]]>