Six Dharmapuri families ostracized as they refused to give up land for road

Sources in the Palacode police stated that an inquiry is underway and the matter will be resolved soon.

DHARMAPURI: The revenue department and the police have launched a probe into the issue of six families being allegedly ostracized by Murukalnatham residents for failing to surrender their private lands for constructing a road in the village.

Murukalanatham village in Jakkasamuthiram panchayat is home to over 60 families. Residents in the village have to travel over 4 km to access primary facilities, including the bus stop, and have been attempting to get road connectivity to their village for the past five years.

In a petition with Collector K Santhi, one of the victims stated that, recently the residents had gathered together in a meeting at their village and requested six families to surrender their land to the revenue department so that the villagers could pass a resolution in gram sabha meeting for building a road, which would reduce the distance between their village and their access to primary facilities. Six families from the village had refused to part with their land, after which they have been ostracized, the petition stated.

R Kumudha (29), the petitioner said, “For the past two weeks we have been living in fear. If we attempt to go to the grocery shop, we are being told to leave the village. Our access to basic facilities, including water, have been cut off and the villagers threaten us, if we even try to access the road. We had filed a petition with the Palacode police, but no action has been taken so far. Our children have not gone to school for the past 10 days and their education is also affected.”

Another resident, A Munirathinam (32), said, “The residents of the village are intimidating us to part with our lands. There are other path that can be made into roads, but they want only our lands. We had also told them that we would give our lands only if the compensation is fair. But, we were immediately ostracized. Our roads have been sealed off and boulders have been placed at the entrance of our lands to prevent us from going out.”

When TNIE spoke to Palacode Tahsildhar Rajsekharan, he said, “This is a minor dispute and it would be farfetched to call it ostracizing people. We had already conducted a inquiry into the matter and we found that there is also a police complaint registered over this dispute. We will be holding a meeting and try to resolve the problem.”Sources in the Palacode police stated that an inquiry is underway and the matter will be resolved soon.