The residents of Kalamatia village under Inchudi panchayat of Remuna block, close to the seacoast at Chandipur, are up in arms when they were asked by DRDO personnel to vacate the land in which they are residing illegally.
The patch of land (plot no 111,Defence land) , under the Inchudi GP of Remuna is under the unauthorised occupation of around 40-50 families.
The villagers, who are supposedly Bangladeshi migrants, claimed that they had been residing on the patch of land for generations, alleging that recently the DRDO security personnel had asked them to vacate the land all of a sudden.
They besides demanding that they should be rehabilitated before eviction from the land also threatened to undertake agitation if evicted forcefully.
They maintained that they would fight tooth and nail to protect their habitation. If further threatened by the DRDO officials, they saidthey would embark on indefinite hunger strike before the collectorate .
“ We have been residing in the patch of land for generations and eking out our living with much difficulties. The DRDO, instead of serving any legal notice to us, sent the security staff twice who asked us to vacate the land . If we are to be evicted then we should be rehabilitated,” demanded the villagers.
Regarding their grievances, they submitted a memorandum to the district authorities requesting to stop the eviction from the land.
Following the petition by the villagers, the tehsildarRemuna and additional tehsildarrespectively Sanjay Rout and Anindita Acharya visited the village and interacted with the affected villagers.
Sources said around 100 acres of land belonging to the DRDO is under illegal occupation of Bangladeshisettlers. The DRDO now has a plan to construct a road through the land.
Sources further said the Defence on each occasion during testing of certain missiles, asked these villagers to shift to temporary locations and paid them compensation as well.
Further, it is learnt that these settlers not only constructed houses in the land illegally but also have undertaken prawn culture by creating hatcheries.