They claimed that their elders migrated from Uttar Pradesh and settled down here after getting the land for farming purposes, but the village panchayat passed a resolution giving the land to the government.

When the construction work of the Focal Point began, a number of these families obtained stay orders from the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

Talking to Newsline, village sarpanch Ajit Singh said he was helpless because the previous panchayat had passed a resolution for giving the land to the government to construct a Focal Point there. He admitted that these people had been ploughing the fields for decades.

Bachna Dass, one of the affected persons, said he had filed writ petitions in the High Court in 1983, 1984 and 1992. While dispossession was stayed by the courts in the first two cases, the third petition is pending, he claimed.

He said though they have the stay orders against dispossession of land, the village gram panchayat and Focal Point staff are taking steps to dispossess them of their land. However, official sources said some persons had come out with the stay orders, following which it had been decided not to start work on their piece of land but work on the rest of the area would continue.