Suhail Dar
Appealing to the higher-ups for immediate intervention, locals from the Kanelwan area of the Bijbehara belt in south Kashmir’s Anantnag district staged a protest after their shops were sealed by the officials claiming that the shops were built on state land.
The shops were sealed in pursuance of the orders of the Jammu Kashmir administration that has ordered the removal of “encroachments” over state land. “No poor person will be harassed, land will only be taken back from the rich and influential land grabbers,” LG Manoj Sinha had said.
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The Jammu Kashmir admin, on January 9, directed the removal of all encroachments on State Land, including Roshni Land and Kachharie (grazing) land, by January 31, 2023. The order was passed while several review petitions challenging Roshni Act Judgment remain pending before the High Court of Jammu Jammu Kashmir.
A total of 6,04,602 Kanal of State land in Jammu and 33,392 Kanal in the Kashmir province, was regularised and transferred to people under Roshni the Act, a land registration law started by the Jammu Kashmir Government led by Farooq Abdullah, however, in 2020, the Jammu Kashmir High Court held that the Roshni Act is completely unconstitutional.
The admin has been serving notices to people to evict the ‘state land’ that locals have been using for agricultural, commercial, educational, religious and other purposes within a limited period of time or else action will be taken against those occupying the state land. Demolition drives are going on across Kashmir, which has triggered panic among local residents, despite the official assurances that the poor will be spared.
From the shutdowns in Kellar Shopian, Magam Budgam and strong resentment against the drives at several other places, the locals have been demanding an immediate rollback of the order. “In J-K, there is chaos everywhere. Bulldozers are being sent everywhere to demolish houses, complexes and buildings. But nobody knows what is the procedure and on what basis this demolition drive is being conducted,” said Omar Abdullah, who is the former chief Minister of Jammu Kashmir.
Other strong political voices have equivocally condemned the drives. Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) President and former chief minister, Mehbooba Mufti on Monday said that the use of bulldozers have made Kashmir worse than Afghanistan, however, the Bhartiya Janta Party has accused the non-BJP parties of creating scare among locals echoing the LG of the region that poor will not be harassed.
On Monday, as the officials of the Revenue Department, Jammu Kashmir reached the Kanelwan area in Bijbehara to lockdown several shops in the south Kashmir area, they faced strong resentment from public. “This is not Modi’s land that he wants to evict us from, the land belongs to people of Jammu Kashmir,” said an old-aged protestor amid a crowd of sloganeering residents.
Speaking to The Kashmiriyat, the locals said that the small patches of the land they had built shops on have been under their possession from several decades. “We do not know which record is being used for the drives, as we have been using the land for many years, merely to earn our livelihood,” they said.
The Jammu Kashmir administration has said that the freed state land will be used for various public purposes.
A woman protestor at Kanelwan said that the administration was coming after the rich and poor equally. “There is no difference, the promises are just hoax. They are coming after everyone,” a woman said.
Agitated locals said that they do small businesses in the shops that were sealed on Monday. “We sell confectionary items here for the small villages for many years and this is how we run our families. With these shops shut, we are uncertain about our future now We do not know what to do,” a local resident said.