RUANDEHI, JUN 10 - Some individuals have allegedly acquired around 56 hectares of land belonging to the Namuna Shankarnagar Community Forest in Butwal using forged documents.
Locals said the individuals, including Narayan Prasad Sapkota, Udaya Gurung and Suman Thapa, acquired the ownership of the land illegally with the help of some staffers at the District Land Revenue Office and the High-level Forest Reform Project.
Sapkota, Gurung and Thapa, however, claimed that the project provided them with the land ownership certificates.
Forest users blamed the District Forest Office (DFO) and the District Administration Office (DAO) for not taking actions against the guilty.
“We repeatedly asked the authorities concerned to return the land to the forest, but our requests have not been heard so far,” said Dil Bahadur Gurung, chairman of the local forest users' group.
Earlier, the Appellate Court scraped a writ in which Sapkota claimed that the land belongs to him.
The Commission for the Investigations of Abuse of Authority, which investigated the matter at the request of the forest users' group, also concluded that the land belongs to the forest.
Later, the individuals who illegally own the land filed a case in the Supreme Court, demanding that they should be allowed to use the land they own.
Meanwhile, members of the community forest users' group have submitted a memorandum to the DAO requesting the authorities concerned to solve the problem.
The DFO officials said they have sent documents to the Supreme Court stating that the land belongs to the community forest.
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