Halting land grabbing by local elite through sustained legal action

The village of Rampur, in the Dinajpur district of

Bangladesh, was established on public ‘khas’ land in 1953

by landless farmers. However, in the following decades,

different groups of local elites claimed the land and tried

to evict the villagers. Thanks to support from CDA, the

villagers resisted the harassment and false claims. In 2000

the court quashed the false claims; in 2001 the village was

beneficiary to a governmental land distribution scheme;

and in 2008-2009 the villagers were awarded formal

ownership of the land.