Mir Musavir
In the recently concluded District Development Council elections, 38 candidates from the indigenous Gujjar and Bakerwal community have been elected to the Council of 280 members from 20 Districts in Jammu Kashmir.
Speaking to The Kashmiriyat, Gujjar community activist, Irshad Hussain said that a survey was taken in hand by the Tribal Research and Cultural Foundation of the Gujjar community, which found that 26 candidates have been elected to the DDC from Jammu region and 12 are from the Kashmir valley.
He said that 15 among the 38 elected DDC Candidates are women, while the highest number (nine) have got elected from the Poonch district of the Jammu region.
Irshad said that Gujjars and Bakerwals ave a populations of 824530 in Jammu Kashmir, which is the third-largest population after Kashmiris and Dogras.
“We hope that the candidates will press for the implementation of the Forest Rights Act as our entire community has been harassed in the recent past and we are still being asked to evacuate our houses in the name of prevention of Forests,” Irshad told The Kashmiriyat.
Pertinently, the Administration in Jammu Kashmir recently carried our demolition drives across Jammu Kashmir in which dozens of structures across the region were removed as a part of drive against ‘illegal structures.’
The community since then has been demanding the implementation of the Forest Rights Act 2006- a central law that gives land possession right to these forest dwellers.
The People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD), led by Farooq Abdullah, won 110 seats of the total 280 constituencies in the maiden District Development Council (DDC) elections,, while the BJP won 75 DDC seats.