Srinagar /Jan, 14 : Member Parliament and senior National Conference leader Justice (Retd) Hasnain Masoodi has in a statement issued to press, decried selective demolition by JDA and Administration of houses of Scheduled Tribe community in Roop Nagar and other areas of Jammu leaving scores of families including women and children shelter less in harsh winter. The demolition operation according to the statement, has been apparently carried out unmindful of the possessory and other rights of the victims in possession of the residential sites for decades and in gross violation of law. It is shocking that while the Party in power at the Centre boasts of having in 2020 regularised 1731 illegal colonies in Delhi under PM – UDAY and claimed to have set up an efficient and hassle mechanism of providing ownership papers to thousands of beneficiaries, the Jammu and Kashmir administration orders selective demolition when it comes to ST population of Jammu and Kashmir. In Delhi the DDA and other authorities show no zeal to retrieve land worth billions of rupees from the encroaches and take steps to regularise their possession and confer ownership rights on them but when it comes to Jammu and Kashmir the JDA takes pride in retrieving land worth a few crore rupees from deprived segments of society at the cost of lives of the people who because of various reasons stand at the end of the queue. On the one hand the Prime Minister calls housing for all by 2024 and affordable housing his dream projects and on the other hand JDA is busy making the poorest of the poor with a roof on their head shelterless, the statement adds.The Jammu and Kashmir administration in general and JDA officials in particular seem to be under a mistaken belief that our system of governance is autocracy run at whim and caprice of one or few individuals with no role for rule of law and that they are free from constitutional obligation to secure economic and social justice to disempowered and unattended segments of society. Masoodi has lauded role of civil society groups for showing solidarity with the victims and appealed for continued support to just cause.so that affected families get justice without delay.
Masoodi has sought immediate intervention of LG in the matter and demanded that the affected families be rehabilitated, the residential sites restored to them and compensation paid to the victims without any delay. He has also demanded regularisation of all such colonies in Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh on the pattern such colonies have been regularised in Delhi and other parts of Country.
