All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) has ridiculed the eviction drive in Jammu Kashmir stating that the drive is not only illegal but the admin has been misleading the people of India about it.
In a press release issued to The Kashmiriyat, AIKS said, The Lt Governor of Jammu and Kashmir Manoj Sinha and his administration are in an eviction spree using bulldozers against hundreds of poor farmers and petty producers in various districts, who are being forcibly evicted from their homes and cultivating land using the pretext of a revenue order claiming to retrieve government land from so-called ‘illegal occupants’.
The farmers are protesting across J-K. The farmers’ organisations are demanding the Manoj Sinha led administration to stop such actions detrimental to the farmers and landless people residing in villages as petty producers, who are dependent on state land which they are occupying for decades. Political parties have also come out against this notification, the press release read.
The Revenue Department has submitted a list of encroachments measuring more than 20 lakh Kanals (One Kanal one eighth of an acre) land to the Hon’ble High Court of J&K. The encroachments as per the revenue administration range from 3 Marlas (half a Kanal) to big chunks of land. The encroachments are not new, having taken place during the regime of Dogra Rulers and continued after Independence till date.
Thus, the present administration under the Lt Governor simply branding the present occupants as land grabbers is not only unjustified but downright misleading. Even the Supreme Court order had observed that those having uninterrupted adverse possession of more than 30 years on State land may have accrued the rights for regularisation.
There are number of Government Orders and Notifications from 1924 till date that recognize the rights of occupants in government land. J&K’s people have a troubled history of the partition and related migrations and people were helped by the then administration in Jammu Kashmir to settle down on government land and also
provided with schemes such as ‘Grow More Food’ to encourage them to cultivate government land.
Many generations have been living in such lands and cultivating them to support their livelihood.
These settlements need to be regularized and land rights of these farmers should be protected by the administration. Instead, the Lt Governor is using bulldozers to evict the poor people from the land even without paying any compensation. Such illegal actions cannot be tolerated by the farmers and the people in general. The struggle will be intensified in the days to come.
AIKS demands the Union Government to intervene and protectthe rights of the farmers in Jammu and Kashmir on their land and livelihood.
1. Issue directions to the Lt. Governor and the administration for preventing them from taking any adverse action which is detrimental to the farmers/ landless
people residing in villages as petty farmers and those landless who are wholly and solely dependent on the State land which they are occupying since decades.
2. The inhabitants who are residing in the area and are in possession of State land rights from 1947/1957 till date shall not be disturbed. A proper mechanism be
adopted to regularise their holdings as per prior government orders.
3. That the land and the houses constructed there on by those who have purchased land from old occupants may be regularised.
4. The orders of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in which it is ordered that those having uninterrupted adverse possession of more than 30 years on state land may have
accrued the rights for regularisation.
5. Ensure implementation of Forest Rights Act