KANPUR, March 12: Tension continued to prevail in the SC/ST dominated Mahipalpur village in Kanpur Dehat district where henchmen of a cabinet minister in alleged connivance with the police let loose a reign of terror to take ``forcible possession'' of the gram sabha land on Sunday.Locals alleged that the goons inflicted atrocities on residents and also barged into their houses to reclaim the land at present being used by the Gram Sabha there. They also alleged that the minister, Premlata Katiyar, was present nearby alongwith officials during the incident.The Minister, however, denied the charges claiming that the piece of the land was her ancestral property and she had documentary evidence to corroborate it. She also denied that the villagers were roughed up by her supporters in connivance with the police.``The land was in possession of my family since 1954 and some elements had tried to encroach upon it,'' she told The Indian Express.Meanwhile, an FIR has been lodged against the ministerin the Shivrajpur police station by irate villagers under the Harijan Act while a counter FIR has also been lodged by nephew of the minister charging locals with encroachment.The incident has assumed political overtones with the Samajwadi Party deciding to take it up in a big way to project the anti-Dalit image of the Kalyan Singh Govt.Harikishan Srivastava, who contested and lost the Lok Sabha polls on an SP ticket from Billahur constituency and had been a former legislator from here, alleged that the minister was using government machinery to take forcible possession of the land. He has sent letters to Chief Minister Kalyan Singh and chief secretary R S Mathur highlighting exploitation of Dalits by the Minister and her henchmen.Disproving her claim that the piece of the land was part of her ancestral property, Srivastava said the minister first laid claim on the property in 1991 in the first tenure of Kalyan Singh as Chief Minister and also manipulated government records in collusion withofficials.
