Srinagar: Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Mohamad Yousuf Tarigami expressed concern over the government's move to "divesting" the people of the land registered under various titles in revenue records across Jammu and Kashmir. "The administration is blind towards the destruction of the livelihood of the rural poor. Is this the beginning of the process of "Acche din"? The administration is propagating the false propaganda that the land is being acquired for development, but the facts contradict its claims," alleged the CPI (M) leader.
"It is unfortunate that the government has mobilised all its machinery to dispossess the poor and excluded the land registered as 'Kahcharai' and 'Shamlat' lands. The people, who are living off this land have found themselves in a bind after the government's recent order." "In the name of retrieving the "state land", the government is making desperate attempts to pauperize the people by snatching their land and creating private land banks. The move is bound to render thousands of people roofless and divest many of cultivation rights."
After the BJP-led Central dispensation ended the special constitutional status of Jammu and Kashmir, the government introduced a new set of land laws to prod outsiders into investing in the region, which had ticked up the fears among the people about losing their land to the non-locals. And now their fears are coming true with the new directions from the government, compelling a battery of revenue officials to retrieve the 'state land' by January 31.
The government to digress attention from pressing issues like unemployment has started retrieving the land of the poor. The non-BJP political parties must come together to fight against the move. CPI (M) demands putting an immediate halt on forcible land acquisition and immediate withdrawal of recent order. CPI (M) appealed to the people to unitedly raise their voices against such disastrous moves of the administration. All Jammu and Kashmir Panchayat Conference, a body of elected panchayat members, on Sunday threatened block-wise protests across the Union Territory against any “anti-encroachment” drive aimed at retrieving state land, which has been in possession of people for decades.
