J&K Apni Party president Altaf Bukhari on Monday said his party will fight tooth and nail to ensure people’s rights are protected and will safeguard the demographic identity of J&K.
Speaking in Srinagar, Mr. Bukhari urged the Lieutenant Governor’s administration to stop retrieving land from people’s possession all of a sudden.
“It’s a matter of fact that people across the length and breadth of J&K have State/Kacharai land in their possession for decades or in some cases for more than a century. Over the years, they have built their houses, shops, and other building structures on this land. I believe that it is not advisable to retrieve this land from their possession all of a sudden,” he said.
The J&K administration has claimed to have removed encroachments from thousands of State land in the past month in J&K, sparking protests from affected locals.
“When I recently met with the union Home Minister in New Delhi and the Lieutenant Governor (L-G) in J&K, they both assured me that the move of retrieving the State land will not affect the common people,” he said.
He said there were complaints that common people including the underprivileged are forced to leave their land at some places in the Union Territory. “I would request the government that all this must be stopped, and people should not be subjected to injustice,” he added.
Mr. Bukhari urged the government to provide property rights of the land to the tillers who have land under LB6 with them.
“People from the Valley and Jammu are united on this issue of land. They will stand by each other to make sure no outsider will be allowed to take even a single inch of land from the UT. We are not sitting idle. We are striving to ensure the rights of the J&K people are protected,” he said.
He claimed there was 88% agriculture and 7% forest land in J&K. “All this land is secured. Out of the remaining, 5% land can be provided to outsiders for industrial purposes. And, even this could be changed by the elected government any time in the future,” he said.
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