Congress MLA booked for grabbing tribal man’s land
The police, acting on a court order, have registered a case against a Congress MLA and his four associates for allegedly grabbing the land of a 55-year-old tribal in Chhattisgarh’s Korba district.Dukhlal Kanwar, a resident of Chuiya village, had moved the special court under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, seeking action against the MLA, Jaisingh Agrawal (48), from Korba, and his associates — Surendra Jaiswal (52), Bhola Soni (38), Vijay Singh (48) and Darshan Manikpuri (45) — for allegedly capturing 0.45 hectare of his land.The Judge, Yogesh Pareek, had on January 15 directed Anusuchit Janjati Kalyan police station in Korba to lodge an FIR against the five. The case was registered under various sections of the SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act on Saturday evening, station house officer R.S. Mandavi said.They were also booked under IPC sections, including 506 (B) (criminal intimidation), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), and 120 B (criminal conspiracy). No one has been arrested so far.According to Mr. Kanwar’s petition, Mr. Agrawal had purchased a piece of land in Chuiya village from Abdul Gaffar in 2010. When the boundary wall construction was under way on that plot in 2012, Mr. Kanwar had raised objection that his land adjacent to it was being captured in the process.Later, when the measurement of the plot was done by the revenue inspector and the patwari, it was found that besides 45 decimal belonging to Mr. Kanwar, the land of two villagers was captured by Mr. Agrawal.Mr. Kanwar lodged a complaint with the police, but no action was taken, the petition said. Last November, Mr. Kanwar filed an application under Section 156(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code in the court.