Most illegal occupants were non-locals: Officials
*J&K HC also ordered to remove encroachments in 2020
Bivek Mathur
JAMMU, May 19: In a major action against the encroachers, Forest Department and Police teams conducted an anti-encroachment drive at Raika Bandi area here today and retrieved around 60 Kanals of encroached Forest land by demolishing 32 illegal structures.
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Officials said the operation was conducted in Compartment No. 66/B of the Mahamaya Forest Belt with the assistance of the Forest Protection Force, Revenue Department, and police personnel in the presence of First Class Magistrates.
“Around 32 illegally raised structures, including both concrete and kaccha constructions, were demolished during the nearly four-hour-long operation,” a Forest Department official said.
He said about 3 hectares (Around 60 Kanals) of the Forest Land was reclaimed during the drive.
Officials said the land, situated in the lower Shivalik range, was worth crores of rupees and had been encroached upon over the years.
According to officials, the Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court in its order dated September 33, 2020 in PIL No. 25/2017 titled SAVE Vs Sate of J&K and others had categorically directed the Forest Department for the removal of the encroachments from the Forest land. Click here to watch video
The case involved the eviction of the majority of non-local encroachers from the Forest land adjoining the fence line of Old Tawi Herbal Eco Park and near the Chak Line Boundary of the Bandi Chak.
According to officials, today’s drive was not a sudden outburst/action but its timeline is quite old and falls back to months of hectic efforts by the Forest field staff to check the spread of the encroachers.
In one such effort on March 28, 2026, they said, the Field staff was attacked by the encroachers and even threatened with implication in fabricated cases while the former were conducting routine inspection.
“As such, sensing the urgency of the matter, the higher authorities were apprised and a procedure of issuing the show cause notices was initiated,” officials said.
“But the exercise went in vain as the encroachers denied accepting the show cause notices and even misbehaved with the field staff, leading to the eviction orders,” added officials.
Further, clearing the air around the notion that the encroachers were residing in the area for the last many decades, the Forest Department officials said that Google Earth timeline imagery clearly shows that there were only 2 to 3 katcha sheds upto the year 2009.
“But the numbers of such structures increased rapidly in the recent years with fresh constructions continuing to come up,” officials said.
They said the administration would not allow further encroachment on forest land and announced plans to map tribal settlements and habitations in forest areas across Jammu district.
Officials added that such locations would be photographed and videographed and the records uploaded after verification of documents.
Meanwhile, Forest Minister Javed Ahmed Rana visited the affected area and ordered a probe into the operation.
Official figures indicate that Jammu district accounts for over 1.45 lakh kanals of encroached land, while more than 17 lakh kanals of Government land have been encroached upon across Jammu and Kashmir.
Authorities said encroachment entries related to over 17.27 lakh kanals of State land have already been removed from revenue records across the Union Territory.
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