Jammu: A day after the Centre notified new land laws to pave the way for outsiders to buy land in Jammu and Kashmir, the Dogra Swabhiman Sangathan Party (DSSP) on Wednesday made an appeal to the people to unite and oppose any further encroachment upon their identity and resources of Jammu region.
DSSP said the newly introduced land laws need to be introduced in Kashmir valley only to maintain its age-old pluralistic cultural ethos by allowing people of different faiths to settle there as a befitting reply to the religious fundamentalists.
Headed by former minister Choudhary Lal Singh, DSSP also announced a mass movement to fight for its long-pending demand of a separate state for Jammu.
DSSP appeals to the people of Jammu province to unite irrespective of any caste, creed, and religion and oppose any further encroachment upon the identity and resources of Jammu province, it said in a statement here.
The party appealed to the Prime Minister to treat Jammu region with sympathetic consideration and give it the status of a state by immediately issuing amendments in the newly introduced land laws by giving exemption to Jammu.
Reacting to the newly introduced land laws in the Union Territory, Singh said the region, which has suffered over the years at the hands of successive governments both in J&K and the Centre because of its nationalist character, should not be treated at par with that of Kashmir.
Both of these provinces are poles apart in every respect including socially, politically, culturally and geographically. Jammu province irrespective of any caste, creed, and religion always stood by the nation, whereas, the Kashmiri leadership cutting across party lines always opposed the idea of India and played always at the tune of the forces inimical to the peace and prosperity of our country, he alleged.
He said it was Jammu region that accommodated all ethnic groups and everyone felt secure on this land of Dogras whether they came from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir during 1947 or the mass Kashmiri Pandit migration in 1990s due to terrorism.
He said the newly introduced land laws need to be exempted for Jammu region as it is already burdened by various migrations both before and after independence.
PTI Report
