Hazaribagh, May 17: The Adivasi Moolvasi Jan Morcha today decided to bring out a torchlight procession on the evening of May 19 to mount pressure on the district administration to revoke its decision to transfer Adivasi land to the railway department. The procession will pass through major thoroughfares of the town.

Though construction at the site has stopped due to the protests, members of the organisation said they would carry on their fight till the government acted in their favour.

Chief convener of the front and advocate Sanjiv Kumar Sinha demanded that the order of the land revenue department be immediately revoked.

He alleged that hundreds of families residing in Birsa Tola, Mariyam, Tola and Sarna Tola would be uprooted by the land transfer.

Many families have been living here for the past two decades and have toiled hard to make the land favourable for agriculture.

Residents of the area had urged former chief minister Babulal Marandi and his successor Arjun Munda to grant them ownership of the land as they fulfilled all the criteria, said Sinha.

He further alleged that the residents had applied to the district administration department concerned but land revenue officials and employees misled the government with wrong information, resulting in the decision going in the railway’s favour.

Front members Paulus Purti, Veenapani Nandi and several other residents have threatened to lay siege to the Jharkhand Assembly if their demands are ignored.

Sinha said the residents were the real claimants of the land.