Our Correspondent
Muzaffarabad
Sardar Masood Khan, President of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) has strongly condemned the latest Indian move to grab the lands of Kashmiri people by amending existing construction and development laws in the occupied territory. “The IOK Administrative Council headed by Lt Governor G.C. Murmu approved a proposal to amend the Control of Building Operations Act, 1988 and the Development Act, 1970 for notifying “strategic areas” for use by the occupied forces and regulating construction through a special dispensation.
The AJK president said that the motive behind promulgation of such laws in occupied Kashmir is absolutely clear that the Indian government wants to establish settlements in the so-called strategic areas to house the Indian citizens thereafter granting them citizenship under the new domicile laws. The move is aimed at to turn the majority of Kashmiri Muslims into the minority in their own homeland. “The latest amendments will expedite the process of demographic changes in the occupied state and turn the entire region into a military garrison,” he emphasized.
The President went on to say that after the start of construction process by Indian occupation forces, the forests land of the territory will further squeeze and this will have highly negative impacts on the environment of the region. He maintained that the puppet regime of occupied Kashmir has already handed over 243 hectares of land to Indian military and paramilitary forces, while the Indian Army had already unlawfully occupied 21,400 hectors of land.
Sardar Masood Khan said that under the new law, the Indian Army can declare any part of the occupied territory including agricultural lands, residential areas and neighbourhood to be “strategic areas”. The AJK president also condemned in stronger terms the shifting of three Kashmiri woman leaders Asiya Andrabi, Naheeha Nasreen.
