Suhail Dar
The local administration on Friday faced a sharp protest over a demolition drive over “illegal construction” in the Gadol area of the Kokernag belt of South Kashmir’s Anantnag district.
A team of revenue officials comprising of SDM Kokernag and Tehsildar on Friday reached an Islamic seminary ‘Hazrat Khadija tul Kubra’ in the area to demolish “illegal construction”, but were met with strong protests from the students of the seminary.
The Local administration’s drive against the various construction has been on for a long while against constructions on “state land” by local residents.
In February, the Anantnag admin claimed it recovered over 1700 Kanals of state, Kahcharie land in the Bijbehara area of Anantnag.
In a continuation of these drives, the officials reached the seminary in February and stormed inside the premises of the seminary, which officials state was done after serving several notices to the authorities in the seminary- a claim denied by the seminary.
“The officials called us over the phone some months back. But they did not speak of the land being state land,” Zahid Hussain Tak from the Hazrat Khadija Darul Uloom said.
Alleging the officials of misbehavior, several girls we spoke to said that the officials did not raise any alarm, they just barged into the rooms of the female students and asked them to come out of their rooms. “They misbehaved, they did not warn us, Just barged into our privacy,” a female student from the Darul uloom said.
They shut the Darul uloom and also closed down our mess. “We have been hungry, What shall we eat and Where do we go,” a protesting girl asked.
The claim was however refuted by the officials who said, “the administration of the seminary is just using girls to fulfill their nefarious designs by levelling such allegations against us, which are totally baseless.”
He said that the officials have claimed shut two rooms. “The property is built over state land and we will not allow anyone to encroach the state land,” he said.
As the officials entered the premises, several locals returning from Friday congregation prayers protested against the local admin after which the admin was forced to re-open the kitchen.
“If the construction is illegal, Why are only poor, Islamic seminaries being targeted, when there are other buildings here. On one side state land is being provided to wine shops and on the other if we are providing education, the admin wants to create troubles for us,” Zahid Hussain told The Kashmiriyat.
He said that various administrative officials have demanded money from the seminary, however, we run an Islamic seminary here and cannot indulge in anything that is Un-Islamic.
“They have been threatening us for a long while through the hands of former militants, but since the land belongs to the state, we will not let any illegal structure over it,” the official said.