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LG Sinha says influential people misused their power to grab state land and claim rent from the Army. Drive to continue, he adds
After the Jammu and Kashmir administration’s anti-encroachment drive turned violent in Jammu, Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha blamed “the powerful lot” saying that they are “giving land eviction drives a twist to grind their axe”.
Addressing a gathering at the inauguration of the Civil Services’ Officers Institute in Jammu, LG Sinha stated that the powerful and influential people, being evicted under the ongoing anti-encroachment drive, had been “fleecing rent from the army and ITC for encroached state land for the past fifty years”.
The anti-encroachment drive turned violent in Jammu when protestors, including women, came out on the streets in the Malik market area to protest against the drive.
Vehicular traffic was stopped as the protestors blocked the main road. Protestors also pelted stones at the anti-encroachment team and police.
As the situation was seemingly turning tense, SSP Jammu Chandan Kohli rushed to the spot and tried to convince the people. Later, the people agreed to allow vehicular traffic on the road. However, the people continued to hold protests.
Meanwhile, in the Padshahi Bagh and Mehjoor Nagar areas of Srinagar, people came out on the streets and protested against the authorities for carrying out anti-encroachment drives in their area. The distraught residents made a passionate appeal to LG Sinha to intervene and spare the poor from eviction.
“Some people are trying to sabotage this drive to serve their interests. Initially, such attempts were made by those who were influential and powerful. Those wielding influence had abused their power and position thrown all norms to the winds and encroached upon state land,” LG Sinha said.
“In violation of norms, they got it registered in their names or the names of their kin. So they tried to provoke people by spreading vicious propaganda about the J&K administration evicting two lakh people,” he continued.
LG Sinha stated that he had given clear instructions that wherever such an eviction drive was to be carried out, the relevant DCs and SSPs would prepare lists in advance and that no one should act on whims.
LG Sinha also stated that he is personally monitoring the drive, and apart from a minor incident, the drive is being carried out smoothly as per directions in the right spirit of the law. He also directed all Deputy Commissioners to be fully alert vis-a-vis the drive to be carried out in any district under their writ. He said that they should update themselves a day in advance. “This will end any scope for inflicting self-harm,” LG Sinha said.
“Secondly, there was a need to brief the media about it to create mass awareness as to what those powerful encroachers had been doing all these years,” LG Sinha said.
“By transferring state land into their names and the names of their kin, they had been fleecing rent from the army for the past fifty years. They had been getting rent from ITC for state land. Common masses should know all this,” LG Sinha said.
“I’m saying it with full responsibility and confidence that if a public opinion poll is conducted tomorrow, 85 per cent of J&K inhabitants would maintain that the best job done by the J&K administration was to evict such influential and powerful vested interests from the state land,” he added.
LG Sinha said that he had personally directed the DCs and SSPs to ensure that no innocent person was affected in any manner during the anti-encroachment drive. He said some people tried to spread misinformation that the common man would be impacted by the anti-encroachment drive.
“I want to assure the people that the administration will safeguard the habitations and livelihoods of the common man. Only influential and powerful people who misused their position and violated the law to encroach upon state land would face the law of the land,” said the Lieutenant Governor.
He reiterated that only those people who grabbed land illegally through unfair means were facing eviction.
Meanwhile, the anti-encroachment drive of the J&K administration continued on February 4. The authorities demolished an outer wall of a former bureaucrat’s house near the Srinagar Airport on Saturday, officials said.
An official said that a team of the Revenue Department led a demolition drive to reclaim state land, measuring around 10 marlas from the “encroacher.” He said that the outer wall, the main gate of the former bureaucrat Farooq Renzu Shah’s residence, was demolished in the Friends enclave, near the airport, as part of the government’s demolition drive against the “land grabbers.”.
Officials said that Renzu Shah’s Humhama home was allegedly registered in his wife’s name. Shah was previously the Director of Information for DC Budgam and is now the Chairman of Jamaat-e-Aitqaad International.
Similarly, the revenue authorities removed the structures built on encroached government land by Advocate Shabnam Lone at Kral Sangri in the Nishat area of the city. During the drive, which was carried out under the supervision of SDM East Murtaza Ahmad, the main gate of her property was also demolished by the authorities.
Lone is the daughter of late Hurriyat leader Abdul Ghani Lone and the sister of Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Conference chairman Sajad Ghani Lone.
