The incident occurred Sunday afternoon when the victim, Pritesh Babu Makwana (35), was harvesting paddy on a thresher machine in the four bigha farm, adjoining that of the accused.A 60-year-old man and his two sons were arrested late Sunday night in a case of atrocity and alleged murder of a Dalit villager over a farm dispute at the Dhathal village in Kheda.
According to the Kheda town police, the accused and the victim were involved in a dispute over their adjoining farmlands for a while after their respective families learned that they had been in possession of each other’s revenue lands for years.
The incident occurred Sunday afternoon when the victim, Pritesh Babu Makwana (35), was harvesting paddy on a thresher machine in the four bigha farm, adjoining that of the accused. Police said the accused, Pratap Desai Parmar (60) and his two sons Jagdish (35) and Dashrath (37), got into a heated argument with Pritesh Sunday afternoon when the deceased, along with other family members, was working on the farm that has been a contention between the two families.
When Pritesh asked the accused to back off, Dashrath allegedly attacked Pritesh on his neck with a sickle, leaving him grievously injured. Though rushed to the Kheda civil hospital, he was declared dead on arrival. In the FIR, Pritesh’s paternal cousin Prakash Makwana said the accused had been harassing the family for long over the disputed farm and even threatened to kill others.
“The accused abused my brother Pritesh while he was harvesting the paddy crop from the farm. When my brother asked them to mind their language and go about their business, they got agitated further. Pratap and Jagdish held my brother by his hands and urged Dashtrath to attack him with the sickle. Dashrath straightaway slashed Pritesh’s neck with the sickle and killed him on the spot. The accused then assaulted my mother Lakshmi and told me that they would kill me the same way the next time,” Prakash stated in the complaint.
Kheda SP Arpita Patel said that Pritesh’s family had sold off the farm after the two parties mutually resolved a pending dispute a while ago.
“Our initial probe revealed that the two families had adjoining farmlands on revenue survey numbers with Part A and B. The families had been in possession of each other’s farmlands due to a mix-up and had recently interchanged their farmlands after realising the actual survey numbers. They even interchanged their lands and continued farming but the bitterness existed. However, the accused continued to abuse the victims and staked a claim on the land they initially held possession of,” SP Patel said.
The victim’s family even sold off the farm to its current owner — Rajnikant Patel — but continued to work on the farm in a profit-sharing partnership with the new owner. “However, the accused continued to stake a claim on the land and Sunday was one such fight,” Patel added.
The SP said, “We have recorded the statement of the owner of the land. He told us that the transfer of the land title was completed in his name. We are awaiting the official records to confirm it.”
This story first appeared on indianexpress.com