Hyderabad: Meerpet police registered a case against Divakonda Damodar Rao, founder and managing director for ‘Namaste Telangana’ newspaper as well as BRS Rajya Sabha member, for reportedly publishing misleading reports that damaged farmers’ interests in Nadergul village.According to the complaint based on which the police registered the FIR, the publication allegedly carried false reports about farmers entering into agreements with private companies / individuals in influential positions for joint development of the land. The land was originally assigned to the landless poor way back in 1968 and previous BRS regime made some attempts to take the land from assignees but that didn’t go through. The complainant alleged that ‘Namaste Telangana’ carried copies of agreements purported to have been entered into by farmers and private developers. “They are all fake documents,” claimed the complainant. Explaining the case, Meerpet inspector Keesera Nagaraju, said: “We received a complaint on November 1 from a farmer, T. Balakrishna of Nadergul village, who stated that in 1968, the government had allotted land to Dalits and landless individuals and their parents in Survey No. 92 in Nadergul.” Balakrishna stated that they and their families had been cultivating the land since then. Then, during the tenure of the previous government, HMDA officials asked the beneficiaries to transfer the land for development, promising to return land after the process. The beneficiaries requested 700 square yards of developed land per acre, to which HMDA officials did not agree, Balakrishna stated in his complaint. Consequently, the families continued to cultivate the land. On September 31 this year, a news report was published in the `Namaste Telangana’ that land pooling by influential persons had started, and that the beneficiaries had agreed to transfer government land to private developers in exchange for 1,000 square yards of developed land and `10 lakh per acre, police said. The report also included allegedly forged agreements, complainant Balakrishna told Deccan Chronicle. Many of the farmers in Survey No. 92, Nadergul, are poor and had been harmed by the false claims made in the article, Balakrishna alleged.
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