National Desk :
Khirabala, a 58-year-old widow living in Kanial village under Durgapur upazila in Netrakona, works on a daily-wage basis in repairing earthen roads in her village so that she can bear the expenses of her six-member family.
When her husband Tileshhar Das died nearly 29 years ago, they had nothing significant without their homestead.
But, when Tileshhar Das was alive 30 years ago, he bought 20 decimals of arable land from his neighbour Niranjan Das at Taka 60,000. But, at that time, he was not able to register a deed of the land for lack of money. In this situation, Tileshhar died.
A few days after her husband died, Khirabala, a mother of five, wanted to register a deed of the land, but Niranjan denied doing so. She felt that a thunderbolt hit her head when Niranjan refused to give registration of this land, as the 20 decimal agricultural land was their only resort to cultivating paddy to meet her family demand for food grains.
She moved door to door seeking a solution to this problem, but she did not get any fruitful results.
Even, Khirabala held a number of village arbitrations with community leaders. They also failed to resolve the problem. But, she did not stop and continued her struggle to get a legal right to the land.
At one stage, a village leader advised Khirabala for going to the village court to this end.
Later, as a plaintiff, she submitted a complaint petition at a village court set up at Birishiri Union Parishad.
Upon receiving the allegation, the union parishad chairman asked both the parties last year to join a hearing to this end. And, during the hearing, they agreed to resolve the problem and as per the compromise petition, Niranjan later gave registration of the land through a deed.
Khirabala said she got justice as her family and society gave support when she went to the village court seeking a solution to the land-pending problem.
“Although I am a woman, the chairman took my allegation into his account and resolved the problem at the village court. And I finally got justice without going to the district court and spending any money,” she added.
Now Khirabala is cultivating crops on her land and living there with her neighbour Niranjan peacefully.
Abdullah Al Mujahid Khan, Netrakona district facilitator of the Activating Village Courts in Bangladesh Phase II Project, said in the past, people were not aware of their rights and they were not informed of the village courts.
