At least eight such cases have surfaced in the last six months, where farmland has been sold off to buyers without any information of the landowners.

“While farmland is being sold off by unscrupulous middlemen, farmers hardly get to even know about this, until it is too late,” said Bharat Dodia, a Civil Society Activist based in Rapar.

Talking to Newsline from Rapar, Dodia said in a recent incident, a group of farmers belonging to the backward Koli Community from Geri village learnt about their land being sold off, only after reading about it in an advertisement in a local daily. "In all, about 40 acre of land was sold off," Dodia said.

“When the matter was taken up with the sub-registrar, we realised that in three cases, registrations had already been made, while in three others they were pending,” he said.

“People feel uncomfortable when it comes to filing complaints, as they belong to the Koli community, while the mediators involved are from higher castes,” Dodia pointed out.

“There is a clear pattern,” he said, adding that after the Koli community was delisted from the list of Scheduled Tribes and was put in the OBC category in 2004, there has been a significant rise in land selling by the community.

“With rapid industrialisation and the hope of the Narmada water reaching Kutch in the near future, a lot of people are investing in real estate here and while one could not buy land owned by the Kolis earlier, now things have changed and there is a lot of pressure on the community to sell their land,” Dodia said. “The community is fast losing its land after this move,” he added.

“While some of them sell land on their own, many who refuse are either forced or duped into selling their land,” he said. "In most cases, the buyers are from outside, who do not use the land for agriculture but only look at it as an investment,” he said.

Farmers, who have lost their land, allege middlemen fraudulently got them to sign the power of attorney of the land before duping them.