February 02, 2023 11:05 pm | Updated February 03, 2023 12:15 am IST – SRINAGAR/JAMMU
Jammu and Kashmir Kisan Tehreek supporters stage a protest in Srinagar on February 2, 2023 against the administration’s land eviction drive across the Kashmir Valley.
| Photo Credit: ANI
Amid growing protests over the Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor administration’s ongoing eviction drive of locals from alleged encroached ‘State’ land, Democratic Azad Party (DAP) chief Ghulam Nabi Azad has raised the issue with Union Home Minister Amit Shah and sought his intervention.
With locals’ protests spreading in parts of the Union Territory, Mr. Azad met Mr. Shah in New Delhi on Wednesday. The DAP leader apprised Mr. Shah about the situation of serious unrest and uncertainty prevailing among the public at large in J&K due to the circular of eviction issued by the UT administration, directing all Deputy Commissioners to remove the encroachments on State land, including Roshni and Kacharai, a DAP spokesman said.
Mr. Azad, according to the DAP, informed the Home Minister that the majority of occupants, who were holding small lands and had constructed houses for the last few decades, were migrants and mostly victims of militancy. “The origin of these shelters or residential houses on State-Kacharai and Roshni lands appears to have taken place first in 1947 and then in the 1962 and 1971 war period, and subsequently during the post-militancy period,” Mr. Azad told Mr. Shah.
He has urged that poor people with small holdings of land and houses should be spared from the eviction drive. “The Home Minister has assured Mr. Azad that small land holders will not be harassed,” the spokesman said.
The L-G administration has claimed to have retrieved hundreds of acres across the UT from alleged encroachers, who included politicians of the National Conference (NC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Illegal shopping complex demolished
An alleged illegal shopping complex of Hurriyat leader and former Mirwaiz (head priest) of south Kashmir, Qazi Yasir, was also demolished on Thursday. Earlier, two houses of militants were also demolished by using bulldozers. In Jammu, around 290 kanal (36.25) was retrieved on Thursday.
Meanwhile, there is no let-up in protests against the drive. Scores of activists of the Kisan Tehreek held a protest demonstration in Srinagar against the administration’s “forcible land eviction of poor kisans in J&K”.
“Eviction of farmers from the agricultural lands in their possessions for decades, even from 1890 is arbitrary, irrational and in violation of various existing laws and norms. The administration is blind towards the destruction of the livelihood of the rural poor. The administration is conducting false propaganda that the land is being acquired for development purposes but the facts are contrary to its claims,” Zahoor Ahmad Rather, general secretary of the Kisan Tehreek, said.
‘Drive unjustified’
Rattan Lal Gupta, provincial president of the NC, said the so-called anti-encroachment drive had led to chaotic situations all across the region, “with people getting frightened over the uncertainty about their future”.
“The drive is totally unjustified and should be stopped at the earliest because the government has no right to snatch away people’s homes and business establishments in such an arbitrary manner leaving the poor state subjects helpless and devastated,” Mr. Gupta said, while urging the L-G to intervene in the issue and ensure justice to the poor.
The Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) also expressed concern over lack of transparency during the eviction drive. “We are not here to defend the land mafia but there should be clarity on who is an encroacher, People with valid revenue documents have also been listed as encroachers,” KCCI president Sheikh Ashiq said.
Meanwhile, the Associated Chamber of Commerce and Industries and The Chamber of Commerce and Industries-Kashmir (CCIK) hailed the L-G administration move to “desealing the Aftab market” in commercial hub Lal Chowk, where over 20 shopkeepers faced sealing on Wednesday. “Sealing these shops would have had disastrous impact on shopkeepers and those dependent on them,” CCIK president Tariq Ghani said.