After a few months’ lull, tribals of Gajapati district came out in full strength to occupy 22 acres of the disputed land ploughed by Tibetan refugees at Saura Padar in the Chandragiri area of the district.
Around 3,000 agitated tribals on Tuesday gathered at Chandragiri to protest the Tibetans’ “supremacy” to keep the disputed land in their possession. They termed the Tibetans as encroachers who grow maize after forcibly acquiring the land.
The tribals vowed to bring back the land to their possession and entered the land to acquire it, but later returned after intervention of the district administration and the police. The district administration assured the tribals to solve the problem within seven days.
The tribals led by the Adivasi Dalit Vikash Samiti, CPI(M) and Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) said that they would also stage a rally and occupy the land forcibly if the administration fails to solve their problem.