Jammu, Feb 05: Former Minister and senior Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Harsh Dev Singh was arrested on Sunday while holding a protest outside LG House Jammu against alleged forcible eviction of poor and small farmers from their marginal land holdings.
According a to party statement, Singh was arrested and detained in Ambphalla Police Post Jammu when he refused to end his dharna on the very gate of Raj Bhawan, Jammu.
He was sitting alone with the National Flag in-front of the LG House when two others including Parshotam Parihar and Sham Lal Choudhary joined him to express their solidarity with the protesting Ex-Minister. The three were arrested and later released in the evening.
Singh said while the encroaching BJP leaders were enjoying the patronage of the helmsmen, the poor and indigent farmers were bearing the brunt of the govt’s draconian move.
He said that while the LG was assuring that the poor shall not be evicted, the District and Tehsil administration were dispossessing only the poor and un-influential while leaving the rich and powerful untouched.
The former minister said that several Ex-legislators had carved out colonies by encroaching state and other lands and sold them at exorbitant rates with none to take cognizance but the poor people continued to be harassed, intimidated and persecuted despite the tall slogans of the LG.
Coming down heavily on the govt for harassing the poor and marginalized sections of society on the pretext of encroachments and retrieval of state and forest lands, Harsh Dev Singh called upon the Ex-Ministers, MLAs and bureaucrats to come clean on the issue before initiating eviction proceedings against the poor, hapless, uninfluential villagers, nomads and other homeless people.
He said that selective action against poor, indigent and homeless people in the name of illegal encroachments to the exclusion of privileged classes was not only reprehensible but amounted to a sin of the highest order.
Accusing the LG administration of facilitating the encroachment of palatial mansions besides state lands, forest lands, JDA and Municipal lands by Ex-Ministers, MLAs and other saffron party leaders while evicting the poor and bulldozing their houses, Harsh Dev said that the double standards of the present dispensation would be vociferously opposed.
He said that several BJP leaders were reported to have usurped public lands and govt properties besides having regularized state lands under Roshni scheme with no action initiated against them for reasons best known.
“BJP leaders had illegally occupied govt bungalows without any entitlement but the present govt rather than evicting them was dismantling the residential units of poor people constructed decades back on the pretext of vacation of state lands”.
Describing govt moves as bizarre acts of highhandedness and political corruption, Singh urged upon the civil society to come forward to expose and oppose the authoritarian and dictatorial policies of the present corrupt regime.
Asserting that politicians and bureaucrats were not above law, Singh sought appropriate action against all Ex-Ministers, legislators and bureaucrats who had encroached govt lands in conformity with the principles of law and equity together with an enquiry against the officers who had allowed such constructions by tempering and damaging records.
He further cautioned the govt that the state lands were not the ‘Jagirs’ or personal fief-down of Ministers or of govt officers who were supposed to apply same yard sticks with all encroachers without any bias, ill will, prejudice and without any regard for the office or position held by the offenders.
Describing the selective action of govt against poor and destitute people as ‘cowardice’, besides “political corruption” of the highest order, Mr. Singh dared the govt to ensure vacation of land under illegal possession of land mafia and influential people as had been assured by the govt itself in Assembly and in Courts.
