f the 15 lakh kanals retrieved, almost half (7 lakh kanals) fall in Kashmir. Officials estimate nearly 7 lakh kanals more remains to be cleared. The leaders who have faced action include those belonging to the BJP.
The Jammu and Kashmir administration claims to have retrieved 15 lakh kanals or 1.87 lakh acres of state and ‘ghacharai (grazing)’ land across the Union Territory since an anti-encroachment drive was launched in early January, including from several senior leaders across parties.
Of the 15 lakh kanals retrieved, almost half (7 lakh kanals) fall in Kashmir. Officials estimate nearly 7 lakh kanals more remains to be cleared. The leaders who have faced action include those belonging to the BJP.
Last fortnight, revenue officials seized land that they said was shown in revenue records as belonging to senior BJP leader and former deputy chief minister Kavinder Gupta in village Ghaink in Jammu (23.9 kanals or nearly 3 acres); as well as land occupied by a relative of former CMs Farooq and Omar Abdullah in Srinagar (40 kanals or 5 acres).
The drive has provoked protests both in Jammu and Kashmir provinces. The administration’s repeated public announcements that people who have built residential houses on “small portions of state land” would not be touched have not calmed fears. Worried about the impact, BJP leaders have called on Lt Governor Manoj Sinha to ensure “the poor” are not affected in the action.
While the allotment of the land to Gupta had been cancelled in 2016 following a PIL, it was retrieved only now. A senior revenue officer said they found several cases of people re-encroaching land retrieved from them during earlier drives.
Gupta, who had earlier denied owning any state land in Ghaink, did not respond to repeated attempts to contact him.
Other senior BJP leaders who have faced action are Colonel (retired) Mahan Singh and Prem Sagar Aziz. Officials claim to have retrieved 9 kanals and 15 marlas of land in Kathua from Singh, who as District Development Council Chairman enjoys Minister of State status. In Basohli area, 4.10 kanals of land was reportedly seized from Aziz, a former minister.
Singh claimed that the land seized was part of 34 kanals of ancestral property belonging to his family and 13 others. “As I was serving in the Army, the co-sharers who are mostly BPL families cultivated it… The revenue officials continued entering records in my name… as I too inherited a portion of it,’’ he said.
Aziz said he had purchased the land in question around 38 years ago and, under provisions of the now-scrapped Roshni Act, paid Rs 44,000 to the authorities to get ownership rights transferred in his name. (Officials describe the land as “high value” and worth nearly Rs 2.4 crore.)
“A few days ago, when revenue officials came and said the land belonged to the state, I handed it over myself,” he said, adding that the matter was pending in court.
In Jammu province, two other senior leaders have received notices – the BJP’s Abdul Ghani Kohli (BJP) and J&K Apni Party’s Zulfikar Chowdhary. Both were Cabinet ministers in the 2014-18 PDP-BJP coalition government.
Kohli refused to say anything saying the matter was sub-judice. Chowdhary said he had purchased nearly 12 kanals in 2006, and that the 3 kanals of it now claimed to be state land had exchanged hands 14 times earlier. The Apni Party leader said he had no way of knowing it was state land as the seller had the necessary papers.
Chowdhary also claimed that “as soon as I got the notice”, he told revenue officials to retrieve the land. “Why should I fight for something which does not belong to me?’’ he said, adding that the administration should spare a thought for the poor, who might face action under the sweeping drive for owning less than an acre of land with houses built on it.
“Retrieving state land from the rich and influential is okay, but the government has a duty to resettle the poor,” he said.
In Srinagar, 40 kanals of land was retrieved from Srinagar’s famous Nedou’s Hotel. The Nedou’s hotel chain was started by Michael Adam Nedou, an Englishman who settled in Kashmir and married a tribal girl, Mirjan. National Conference founder and the late CM Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah – the patriarch of the Abdullah family — was married to Michael Nedou’s granddaughter.
Awami National Conference leader Muzaffar Shah, a relative of the Abdullahs, confronted officials who came to retrieve the land. While officials claim that Nedou’s had been assigned only 140 kanals (17.5 acres) of state land and had occupied an additional 40 kanals, Shah said the entire 180 kanals had been leased to the hotel.
Revenue officials in Kashmir have also seized 1 kanal of ‘kahcharai (grazing)’ land in Kokernag reportedly belonging to former Congress president Peerzada Mohammad Sayeed; and 2 kanal and 7 marla of ‘shamlat (village common land)’ in Shistergam said to belong to PDP leader and former legislator Syed Farooq Andrabi, a close relative of PDP president and ex-CM Mehbooba Mufti.
Other reported seizures are 15 kanal of shamlat land, in Dooru, from the family of former CM Syed Mir Qasim; 2 kanals in Nowgam from the widow of Mohammad Maqbool Dar, a former Union Minister of State for Home; 15 kanals of “high-value” orchard land in Shopian from ex-finance minister and PDP leader Haseeb Drabu; 12 kanals of state land in Karan Nagar from a prominent Kashmiri Pandit, M L Dhar; and 1 kanal and 18 marla ‘kahchari’ land in Qazigund from the kin of senior NC leader and former minister Peerzada Ghulam Ahmad Shah.
On February 2, officials demolished a shopping complex owned by Hurriyat leader and former Mirwaiz of South Kashmir Qazir Yasir.
A senior revenue official said that they were looking into a house built by Farooq Abdullah allegedly on state / forest land. The official said they were examining the legal aspects as the Enforcement Directorate earlier initiated proceedings in the matter.
With protests continuing, Chief Secretary Arun Kumar Mehta recently issued a statement that “state land is being retrieved from big vested interests, only with the purpose of reverting it back for public use”. He said the public should support the drive as the land could be used to build hospitals, schools, playgrounds etc.
Criticising the anti-encroachment drive, the PDP said Sunday that “the BJP’s lotus seems to have been replaced by a bulldozer”, adding that it might add to the apprehensions of the people about the government “intent to alter our demography by dispossessing the locals and incentivizing outside settlers to take their place”.
