In Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir, the fascist Modi-led Indian regime has launched a major offensive, aimed at dispossessing locals of their lands and properties in the name of anti-encroachment campaign.
The drive has instilled fear among all Kashmiri people without discrimination of caste, creed and region about their being turning to an enslaved minority vis-a-vis an influx of outsiders.
The locals complain that the drive is also affecting poor people possessing small land holdings, the only means of survival.
“I am running this shop in Srinagar for the past 30 years; from these decades no one ever told me that this is a ‘state land’. I belong to a poor family. Where should I go now,” asked Firdous Sofi, a local trader.
“I am a heart patient, the administration are demolishing my son’s property. Aren’t they humans? We only have this place to make our livelihood. If they will demolish it, I will die here,” screams Sara Sofi. The family said that they received no eviction notice before the bulldozer knocked on their doorstep.
“We were sleeping when we heard people gathered before our shop. We reached here in complete confusion because we haven’t received any eviction letter from the authorities. It came as a shock to us. They rushed inside. We even showed them papers of this land but no one even looked at them.”
Within the next hour, a bulldozer knocked the boundary walls of another shop. A family went out of their makeshift tent when they saw a bulldozer approaching it. They made a human chain to protect their home.
“We are working here for the last 20 years. We never left Kashmir. We were here when Article 370 was abrogated. No one threatened us to leave but now government is demolishing our makeshift home. They want us to live on roads, but we have three little daughters. Where will we go” Sakeena said.
The modi regime snatched thousands of kanals of land , ‘gascharai ‘(grazing)’ land, Eidgahs, Awaqas lands from different areas including of several senior leaders, businessmen and common people, across various parts of the Kashmir Valley since an anti-encroachment drive was launched in early January.
Standing in his shop in Mehjoor Nagar in Srinagar that is now bulldozed, Sameer says, “Six of us ran our scrap businesses here, 150 others worked for us . The administration started bulldozing our shops without giving any notice. This was our livelihood.”
Responding to the demolition of homes and businesses in Srinagar, Budgam, Islamabad, Kupwara and Baramulla that are ongoing since 4 February, Aakar Patel, chair of Amnesty International India said, “The ongoing demolitions appear to be an extension of the brutal human rights violations Jammu and Kashmir, the only Muslim majority region, has historically witnessed. These demolitions could amount to forced evictions which constitute a gross violation of human rights”.
The Peoples Democratic Party head, Mehbooba Mufti, said “Now, it just so happens that Raj Bhavan and Badami Bagh cantonment fall under the same category. The anti-encroachment drive is another attempt to seize our land and cause massive changes to our demography.—KMS
