Harshad Patel, Collector, Bhavnagar, said that the farmers had dropped their letters demanding permission for “icchha mrityu”, at the registry branch of the collectorate.
The Maharashtra farmers long march that was organised by All Indian Kisan Sabha (AIKS) in Mumbai. (Representational image: PTI)
“A total of 5,259 people, comprising farmers and their family members from 12 affected villages, have sought “icchha mrityu (right to die) as the land they cultivate is being forcibly snatched by the state government and Gujarat Power Corporation Limited (GPCL),” claimed Narendrasinh Gohil, a local farmer and a member of Gujarat Khedut Samaj, an organisation fighting for farmers’ rights.
The registry branch receives and dispatches all the letters of the collectorate.
The collector, however, did not specify the number of farmers who had written or signed on these letters. In the letter, the farmers accused the state government, and GPCL, of using police force to get them to vacate the land which the farmers claimed was being tilled by them for several years now.
The farmers alleged that GPCL was trying to possess the land more than 20 years after the power firm had acquired it, adding that such a move was against the law.
“As per the Land Acquisition Act, 2013, a company cannot take possession of a land which it had acquired more than five years ago. To possess such a land, it will have to initiate the process of acquisition afresh,” Gohil said.
“On two occasions, the police have fired teargas on a peaceful gathering of farmers. We are being threatened and bullied by the government,” Gohil alleged.
He added that the district administration has imposed section 144 of the CrPC, a provision prohibiting any assembly of persons the authorities term unlawful, in the 12 villages since over a month now.
“GPCL and Gujarat government want to usurp our land, despite the land legally belonging to the farmers. What shall we do in such a situation? If we do not have cultivable land, we shall be as good as dead,” the letter claimed.
The farmers, in their letter, said that the “forcible acquisition” of land was making them feel like “terrorists” and, therefore, they would like to be killed by bullets fired by Army personnel.
“We wish for this because we have been made to feel like terrorists by the authority. So my last wish is to be killed at the hands of the Army,” the farmers said in the letters
May 1, 2018 at 4:05 pm
The farmers asking permission to die reflects their helplessness and the rulers apathy towards their problems