Jammu and Kashmir People’s Conference chief Sajad Lone on Monday hit out at the administrtation over the ongoing anti-encroachment drive in the Union Territory, saying the drive would only result in more people being rendered homeless.
The UT administration launched an eviction drive against illegal encroachment by ‘big land owners’ and ‘influential’ people. Nearly 23,000 hectares were retrieved during the ongoing anti-encroachment drive in the Jammu division. “We have no objection to the anti-encraochment drive if it is against big land owners. The big land owners will bring their lawyers tomorrow and take back all the encroached land. However, it’s only the poor who are being targeted and left to die,” Lone said a press briefing on Monday.
Responding to the chief secretary’s statement that the drive will continue as legal recourses were available for the alleged encroachers, Lone said, “If I were in his place, I would not have made such a statement.”
“It’s not bulldozers but compassion and love that reepresents India,” he said.
Earlier on Thursday, Democratic Azad Party chief Ghulam Nabi Azad called on Union Home Minister Amit Shah to apprise him of ‘eviction issues’ in Jammu and Kashmir.
In a statement, DAP said Azad met Amit Shah to apprise him of “serious unrest and uncertainty prevailing” among the public due to the “circular of eviction issued by the UT administration directing all Deputy Commissioners to remove the encroachments on state land, including Roshni and Kacharai.”
Azad tweeted, “Met union Home minister Amit Shah Ji regarding land eviction issues in J&K. Apprised him about the prevailing unrest & uncertainty among the common people who are forced to vacate the properties which are otherwise recognized by successive regimes. Amit Shah Ji assured me no small landholders who constructed houses will be touched!” (ANI)
