From OneWorld South Asia

Abul Barakat also conducted research which revealed that apart from Hindus, land encroachment victims also included 31 other ethnic minority groups that comprise 12 percent of the country’s 140 million population.

According to him, the share of landless households increased from 19 percent in 1960 to 56 percent in 1996.

But Barakat maintains that, “Hindus are the worst affected as they are the biggest minority group who owned plenty of land before the discrimination began. More than one-third Hindus have turned landless or marginal landowners.”

Agrees Hindu lawyer Arun Pal. “All the Hindus of two villages in our region in Gopalganj (140 kilometers southwest of Dhaka) have become landless from 1965. Over the years, many of my neighbors have gone to India and many others are living destitute on other peoples’ lands although they are land owners themselves,” he discloses.

Pal is lucky his ancestral home was not seized, unlike 50-year old Debashish of Tangail, 120 kilometers north of Dhaka. Debashish’s life changed in the early 1980s when encroachers in connivance with land officials took away his lands.

Recalls Debashish, “I discovered I was no longer the owner of my land one morning when I went to the land office to pay my taxes.” Encroachers promptly descended on his property and drove him away.

But Debashish has not yet abandoned hope. “I am waiting for the government to implement the repeal of the Vested Property Act,” he says optimistically.

Complete Article from Oneworld