Jammu and Kashmir government asks Mehbooba Mufti to vacate official bungalow

The Estates Department of Jammu and Kashmir government has served a notice to PDP president and former chief minister, Mehbooba Mufti to vacate her official bungalow in the high-security Gupkar area, here.

The Estates Department has served an eviction notice to Mufti asking her to vacate the Fairview residence, sources said. An alternate accommodation has been offered to Mufti in lieu of Fairview residence.

With lifetime perk guaranteed to all former chief ministers of Jammu and Kashmir gone after the government of India amended a state law, two former CM’s - Omar Abdullah and Ghulam Nabi Azad – had already vacated official residences in 2020.

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However, Mufti was holding a posh Fairview residence on Gupkar Road, where most of the high profile politicians, bureaucrats, and police and intelligence officers reside.

The firebrand PDP president confirmed that she had been asked to vacate the official bungalow, in which her family lives since 2005 when her father late Mufti Muhammad Sayeed was the chief minister.

“I do not own a residence where I can stay. So I have to consult my legal team before making a decision,” she said.

Mufti heads the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which was in power in J&K in alliance with the BJP from March 2015 till June 2018.

While in other states chief ministers are supposed to vacate their official residence at the end of their tenure, in J&K, they could retain them, owing to security reasons, thanks to an amendment in the rules made more than two decades ago.

However, after the abrogation of special status of J&K under Article 370 last August, the law was scrapped.

The Fairview residence of Muftis was formerly an infamous torture center, known as PAPA-II. Until 1989, it served as an official guest house. The building was occupied by the Border Security Forces in 1990 who named it PAPA-II. It continued to function as an interrogation and torture center till 1996 when Ashok Jaitley, then Chief Secretary moved in and used it as his residence.