In Rupandehi, the district administration, forest office, and local levels have already issued notices of 7, 15, and 35 days to remove settlements in various areas.
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As the district administration and local levels have intensified the collection of details of encroached government and public land, the landless, squatters and unorganized settlers of Rupandehi have been agitating. A demonstration was held in Butwal on Thursday at the call of the Nepal Landless, Squatters and Unorganized Settlement Struggle Committee.
Earlier, a demonstration was held in Raniganj, Butwal, on Sunday. The government is collecting details to remove squatters and unorganized settlers and the notices issued to vacate the settlements have terrified the unorganized settlers. They have shouted slogans against the government and warned of strong resistance.
In Rupandehi, the district administration, forest office and local levels have already made public 7, 15 and 35-day notices to remove settlements in various areas.
The demonstration, which started from the highway intersection in Butwal on Thursday, reached the traffic intersection and turned into a meeting. In the meeting, the leaders of the unorganized settlers expressed their anger, saying that it was unfair to try to remove them from the places where they have been living for decades without any alternative. Addressing the meeting, CPN-Maoist District Secretary Birendra BK said that the state has taken a double approach by collecting taxes from the citizens, making them vote, but declaring the settlement illegal.
‘We have paid taxes, we have voted, all of which are legal, but the state is making the huts we live in illegal,’ he said, ‘The state has forgotten to fulfill its legal obligations and is embarking on a campaign to make the citizens stateless. We are completely opposing that.’ He claimed that if the land they are living on is illegal, the votes taken from the same citizens and the government formed on the basis of that cannot be valid.
Khagendra Poudel, District Coordinator of the Landless, Sukumvasi and Unorganized Struggle Committee, warned that if the dozers are used in any settlement by the squatters and landless, residents across the country will unite and resist. He claimed to surround the houses of the people's representatives of the relevant local levels and intensify the movement.
'We have only given a warning now,' he said, 'If a bulldozer is used in our houses and settlements tomorrow, we will surround the houses of the people's representatives. Let that situation not come to pass as much as possible.' According to Kumar Thapa, chairman of the Dissolved Land Problem Resolution Commission Rupandehi, there are 79,261 landless, squatter and unorganized settlers in Rupandehi alone. Poudel warned that if necessary, 150,000 people from that number of households will be taken out on the streets.
Citizens have been building houses in the public, government and riverside areas of the district for almost 60 years. The government and now the local government have been providing facilities such as roads, electricity, drinking water in such settlements and collecting service fees and taxes for them. That is why they claim that the state should provide such land.
The protesters demanded that the government correctly identify the actual squatters and issue them land ownership certificates as arranged by the Land Commission during the previous government. They demonstrated with placards with slogans such as ‘Don’t displace citizens, establish them, our taxes and votes are valid – how is the land we live on illegal, respect human rights, don’t destroy them, give them the right to live, don’t leave settlements deserted – manage them, stop detention in the name of management, destruction in the name of development is not acceptable’.
