Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Jan 2: Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), president for J&K UT, Darshan Rana has expressed serious concern over the administration’s handling of colonies and residential structures built on Government land, stating that the matter goes far beyond legality and is deeply connected with humanity, justice, and the responsibilities of a welfare state.
He stated that over the decades, numerous colonies have come up on Government land and have now become a social reality of Jammu & Kashmir. These colonies are inhabited by poor families, labourers, Dalits, backward classes, displaced persons, migrants, and other economically weaker sections who have been living there for many years, often with the knowledge of successive administrations.
Rana emphasized that demolishing homes without providing rehabilitation or alternative accommodation is inhuman, unjust, and unconstitutional. He said that the right to life with dignity includes the right to shelter, and a welfare state cannot treat poverty as a crime or housing as a law-and-order problem. Jammu & Kashmir, he asserted, is a welfare state and not a punitive or bulldozer state, and governance must be guided by compassion, inclusiveness, and constitutional morality rather than coercion and force.
He further demanded that long-standing colonies on Government land must be regularised through a clear, transparent, and time-bound policy instead of being uprooted. In cases where land has been acquired or occupied by the Army or security forces, a separate and well-defined policy must be framed to ensure fair compensation, rent, or rehabilitation for affected landowners. He stressed that the UT Government must immediately publish a written and publicly accessible policy on government land and rehabilitation to end fear, uncertainty, and arbitrary actions.
Warning the administration against resolving this sensitive issue solely through demolitions, Rana said that such actions would only deepen social unrest and alienation. He said BSP opposes any anti-poor action. Amd said demolishing homes of the poor is not governance but oppression.
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