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Probe Batra's land grab charge: Manohar Parrikar to MP government

Defence minister Manohar Parrikar asks Madhya Pradesh CM to look into the matter

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Prompted by a call for help from GL Batra, the 70-year-old father of Kargil war martyr and Param Vir Chakra recipient Captain Vikram Batra, defence minister Manohar Parrikar has asked Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan to look into alleged attempts by mafia to grab a six-acre piece of land in Jabalpur, which the soldier's family says is their ancestral property.

In this recent letter- a copy of which is with dna- Parrikar has asked Chouhan to have the matter examined and "resolved expeditiously."

Batra, a retired teacher with a government school, had written to Parrikar that the land belonged to his family after his father bought it in 1974. Batra said that in 2010 a group of five men – whom he called "Tiwaris" – appeared from "nowhere" and claimed to be descendants of the person who cultivated the land in 1909-10. What has followed is constant harassment through fabricated FIRs and court cases against the family, Batra wrote.

He has accused the owner of the Hindi daily Dainik Bhaskar, Kailash Agarwal, and the editor of its Jabalpur edition, Girish Pandey, of backing the "Tiwaris".

When dna contacted Agarwal, he categorically denied having a role in the matter. Yet the Tiwaris have given a general power of attorney to his wife Seema Agarwal and to Pandey to represent them legally.

Pandey told dna that the Tiwaris are his relatives and that he supported them. But he made a counter-allegation on the Batras of fraudulently occupying the land and cited an FIR and court cases against them filed by the Tiwaris. "The matter is sub judice and only the court will decide who owns the land," said Pandey.

But the tehsildar and the SDO courts have already dismissed cases filed against the family, even as a case is pending before the divisional commissioner of Jabalpur. Batra attached the orders in his letter to the defence minister.

Against the FIR too, the family has secured an anticipatory bail from the Jabalpur-located MP high court.

The retired Batra stays in Palampur with his wife. For work he had moved there from Jabalpur, where his parents had settled after Partition.

Over the phone, Batra told dna that it is not just his land that the mafia is eyeing but also his cousin's and a neighbour's. "When my father bought it in 1974, the land was on the outskirts of the city, but as Jabalpur grew, the value of the land has gone up manifold and now runs into several crore," he said.

Along with Parrikar, Batra shot off letters to the president and prime minister, too, requesting help. While the president forwarded the complaint to the Madhya Pradesh chief secretary, there has been no response from the prime minister, the family says. Moreover, no one from the state government has so far contacted the Batras.

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