The issue of encroachment of forest land by land grabbers again surfaced in the Assembly. The Minister in charge of forests has doled out the figures saying that 14,345 hectares of forest land had been encroached upon – 9,463.39 hectares in Jammu and 4877.62 hectares in Kashmir. The Minister claimed that out of this, 1,096.72 hectares had been cleared of encroachment. Assuming that this is the factual position it is a good sign that after many years of dilly-dallying the Government has at last conceded that land grabbing had happened and has been cleared to a large extent.
However, the Minister did not divulge the critical information as to what punitive measures were taken against the land grabbers. After all they have committed a crime and they have been retaining the encroached land for a long time deriving its benefits. How has the Government or the Forest Department dealt with them? This is important because only punishment as allowed by law can set the things right. What is important is that such illegalities should not happen in future, and those who are involved should be given exemplary punishment.
We had taken up this issue several times in these columns. If the statement of the Forest Minister is to be taken on its face value, we will say that our raising of a public issue has at least been responded. We hope that the remaining over a thousand hectares of land still in the possession of land grabbers will be vacated as soon as possible and retrieved to the Forest Department.
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