Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Dec 19: While supporting the move of retrieval of illegal occupations of Govt lands, NPP chairman and former minister Harsh Dev Singh has called upon the ministers, legislators and bureaucrats to come clean on the issue of encroachments before harassing or initiating eviction or criminal proceedings against poor, hapless villagers, nomads and other homeless people.
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Addressing a press conference here today NPP leader said though the illegal encroachments on State and forests lands were required to be removed, the selective action against poor and marginalized sections, to the exclusion of privileged classes was highly reprehensible. He was reacting to the dismantling of a single Kachha room house constructed by one Ganesh Dass of village Amroh in Ramnagar by Revenue Deptt on the pretext of encroachment of State land thus exposing his wife and a two year kid to vagaries of weather in harsh winters.
Referring to the selective eviction of poor masses including labourers, landless people, nomads and tribals who were living in temporary shelters on State, forest and other lands, Singh questioned as to how and why the palatial mansions constructed on Govt lands by politicians and top bureaucrats had been granted immunity from legal and departmental action.
Pointing towards several cases wherein the poor nomads and indigent villagers had been rendered landless and shelter less due to their eviction by the Revenue and Forest Deptt, Singh charged the very same officials of providing all support in encroachments to mighty and the powerful. He said while decades old Girdawaries of thousands of people, like Ganesh Dass, in Ramnagar alone had been cancelled, a local BJP leader was allowed immunity despite having encroached 22 kanals and 15 marlas of State land.
Making a particular mention of some of the prime residential colonies and other concrete structures developed by the powerful politicians by encroachment on state lands and by destruction of forests, Singh dared the Govt to retrieve the such lands from the Ministers, MLAs, MLCs and other bureaucrats in areas like Bhatindi, Sunjwan, Chowadi, Nagrota, Bajalta, Roop Nagar, Bantalab etc in the vicinity of Jammu city. Asserting that politicians and bureaucrats were not above law, Singh sought appropriate action against all of them.
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