After resentment, anti-encroachment drive in J&K put on hold

After huge resentment from the public and opposition parties, Jammu and Kashmir administration has halted the anti-encroachment drive “till further orders.”

Besides bulldozing hundreds of structures during an over one-month drive, 2.5 lakh acres of land across 20 districts of the union territory (UT) was retrieved from the encroachers, including some high-profile politicians.

Sources said the drive was put on hold as the government is coming up with a policy to protect small landholders who number in lakhs.

“The government has put on hold the anti-encroachment drive till the consolidation of actions taken so far and has directed for geo-referencing and digitization of retrieved land at the earliest,” they said and added it was done to factor in and consolidate what has been achieved so far in the drive.

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The drive began after the government issued a circular on January 9 instructing all deputy commissioners (DCs) to retrieve state land from encroachers. It asked the DCs to draw a daily anti-encroachment drive plan, personally monitor it and submit a report by 5 pm every day to the government.

But the drive triggered protests from people in the UT and came under criticism from political parties. Though Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha and his administration several times said the drive was not against poor people who built a house or a shop but against the influential and the rich.

But the explanation found no takers amid large-scale demolitions and sealing of properties by the officials. Even PDP president and former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti accused the BJP of turning J&K into Afghanistan by using bulldozers to demolish the homes.

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Opposing the drive, another former CM and National Conference leader Omar Abdullah said that the administration was not following the legal process.

The Resistance Front (TRF), an offshoot of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba militant outfit threatened to kill “anyone associated with the revenue department” involved in the anti-encroachment drive.

A senior official of the Revenue department admitted that there were complaints that in some places common people suffered due to the drive.

“However, the decision to put on hold the anti-encroachment drive doesn’t mean that leftover big encroachers of the State land would be spared. The decision is just temporary and drive will resume particularly after notification of policy to protect small landholders,” he added.