Land grabbers in the valley buoyed by factors like continued absence of exiled Kashmiri Pandits community and above all by non-action of state agencies, have taken the law in their hand and assumed forced ownership of the landed properties of the community in exile. This high-handed and illegal activity is going on despite J&K Migrant Immovable Property (Preservation, Protection and Restrain of Distress Sale Act) 1997, which makes Deputy Commissioners the custodians of the landed property of migrants. The district administration significantly adopt avoiding tactics whenever affected migrants bring to their notice glaring cases of land grabbed by the goons. The media has pointedly reported dozens of such cases in which the victims have been knocking at the door of authorities from the lowest to the highest rung, including the National Human Rights Commission but with no results whatsoever. On the ground, there is not an iota of such protection at all for the affected migrant community. Land grabbing is turning into a general loot of the property of the exiled community. This is a serious situation and the Apex Committee must be convened forthwith to consider the issue and suggest realistic measures to forestall highhanded activities of law breakers. Allowing landed property of the migrants to be forcibly grabbed and no action taken by responsible authorities does not help create conducive atmosphere for the migrants to return to the valley. Therefore the claims of the Government that normalcy has prevailed stands repudiated.
The Government needs to understand that though the Act is there and on paper the Government is the custodian of migrant property, but actual situation on the ground is something different. Therefore some foolproof mechanism is needed that would ensure full and practical implementation of the Act. May be Revenue and Police Departments jointly constitute an Action Committee to examine and evacuate current cases of illegal occupation of migrants’ lands/orchards etc as first step towards a major decision of securing the property rights of migrants.
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