Farmers protesting land acquisition thrash officials

BANGALORE - Farmers opposing acquisition of their land for a residential complex on Bangalores outskirts Monday punched, kicked, head-butted and tore clothes of officials who went to the area to survey the land, police said.

Farmers of Kodigehalli, which forms part of the proposed ‘Nadaprabhu Kempegowda Layout’, named after founder of Bangalore, Kempegowda, thrashed an executive engineer, an assistant executive engineer and their driver and broke the windshield of their vehicles, they said.

The three were part of a 12-member team of the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) that forms residential and commercial layouts in the city and surrounding areas.

Groups of people chased the three as they tried to escape and assaulted them till police from nearby areas reached the spot and rescued the bruised and shaken officials.

The executive engineer who identified himself as Siddaraju later told reporters and the villagers that they had come only to survey the land and not acquire it.

Acquisition process will start only after the survey, he said.

But the villagers were in no mood to let the team carry out the survey and forced it to return abandoning three vehicles.

The state cabinet gave final approval for the formation of the layout acquiring over 4,000 acres of land spread over 12 villages.

BDA plans to form around 55,000 residential sites and allot to people after a rather cumbersome procedure like priority to those who have applied thrice earlier for sites in other layouts but had failed to get them.

Apart from monetary compensation to be fixed, farmers whose lands have been acquired would get around 9,500 sq ft developed land in the layout for every acre they parted with.