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Land disputes involving the Railway at Dimapur |
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Halted Dimapur, disposing of an accumulated dak. While here it was brought to my notice by the P.W.D. that the Railway have within the last six weeks moved their boundary pillars east from the Railway thus encroaching on Dimapur Station. I went with Mr. Jolly to find the permanent way inspector and get an explanation, as to why he had dug a trench across the open ground between the Inspection Bungalow compound and the Railway Station, removed a stone pillar from one place and put up two new stone pillars east of the boundary as shown in my Station Map. He produced a map which he said was the revised map of the Railway land recently issued to him. According to the map the Assam Rifles rest camp is on Railway land - which is absurd. I believe when the new Dimapur Station was projected the Railway relinquished a part of the land originally given them. I can find no record among my files here but will search in the office at Kohima. Probably they agreed to give it up but never altered their maps. [Note: They have since written to say that they will revise these new landmarks.] |
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Another question is the one of the encroachment on Railway land by the Fullergaw bazar. Along the whole back line of the bazar where it borders on Railway land is an encroachment of from 2 to 6 feet in some cases by pukka buildings, which it would be necessary to pull down to remove the encroachment. This encroachment is probably due to the carelessness with which the plots in the bazar were originally laid out before the bazar was handed over to the Naga Hills. It would be a serious hardship to compel the owners of buildings to pull down parts of them and if the Railway are not content to let them be, it will be necessary to reacquire a narrow strip of land on that side. |
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I received a petition from 42 cultivators and others to the effect that they had heard that the Kayas of the bazar had petitioned for a transfer to Golaghat and that some of their names had been obtained on false pretences by Abdul Goffur, but that they much preferred the Naga Hills administration and did not want to go back to Golaghat. |
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The Commandant and Assistant-Commandant turned up in the evening. Apparently the platoons detailed for the Hukong valley survey have been countermanded so that there will be 200 to 250 rifles in Kohima after all. [Note: They have since been ordered to go. - JH]. |
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The Inspection Bungalow Kitchen is to be repaired. It would be advisable to enlarge it at the same time. It is not nearly big enough when the Bungalow is full, and is poky at the best of times. |
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The Perimeter of the old fort also needs cleaning as well as the ruins in the jungle at the back. |
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In the afternoon I rode out to Padampukri, Ekrani and Darogapathar. The former is a Gurkhali village, the second Kachari and Garo, the third a mixture of all three. As the Assistant Commissioner had reported that the Padampukri people were anxious to have pattas and willing to pay increased revenue if they could get them. I asked the Ekrani and Darogapathar people what they thought. They were both clear that they would be glad enough to get pattas, but when I suggested that in that case they would no doubt not object to their revenue being increased from Rs.3/- to Rs.5/- to pay for the mandal they said they would much sooner stay as they were. They added that it was only the people of Dimapur and Padampukri who squabbled over their land and made a fuss about getting pattas and that it was really the Mussalman cultivators (immigrants from Sylhet) who got up the agitation. This I believe is true. The ex-Mauzadar Abdul Goffur, who quarrels with everyone, engineered one petition for transfer to Sibsagar. The Kacharis and Garos stated most emphatically that they preferred the Naga Hills administration, and that without my having raised the question at all. |
