Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR/JAMMU, Oct 27: The People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration, an amalgam of various mainstream parties in Jammu and Kashmir including the National Conference and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), today condemned the amendments to land laws to allow people from outside the Union Territory to buy land there, and pledged to fight it on all fronts.
Reacting to the development, People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) spokesperson Sajad Lone said, “The amendment stripped the permanent residents of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh of exclusive right to acquire and hold immovable property in the state — now unconstitutionally divided into two Union Territories and granting such rights to non State Subjects.”
Terming the Ministry of Home Affairs order as a “huge betrayal”, Lone said, “This is a massive assault on the rights of the people of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh and grossly unconstitutional. The Alliance has vowed to fight the anti Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh measure on all fronts.”
National Conference vice president Omar Abdullah said the newly introduced JK Development Act, which has come into force with immediate effect, was “hostile to the interests of the people of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh”.
He said that with these new laws, “tokenism of the Domicile Certificate has been done away with as purchasing non-agricultural land has been made easier. These new laws are unacceptable to people of JK and Ladakh.”
Rejecting the new land laws whereby anyone can purchase land in Jammu and Kashmir, J&K Pradesh Congress Committee (JKPCC) termed it another betrayal of BJP with people of J&K, as time and again the people were assured that their right to land and jobs shall be protected at all costs, even post 370 abrogation.
“Earlier the Government opened the doors of jobs to outsiders through three provisions in the domicile law and now the BJP Government has facilitated the sale of land to all non-J&K residents, at the cost of interests, culture and identity of people in the erstwhile Dogra State, already reduced to a UT against wishes of all people,” JKPCC statement said.
PDP president Mehbooba Mufti said it was yet another step to disenfranchise the people of Jammu and Kashmir. “Yet another step that is part of GoI’s nefarious designs to disempower and disenfranchise people of JK. From the unconstitutional scrapping of Article 370 to facilitating loot of our natural resources & finally putting land in JK up for sale,” she tweeted.
CPI(M) leader M Y Tarigami said it was “a design to disempower the people of Jammu and Kashmir further and to put their land on sale for corporations.” “It is daylight robbery of land in the name of integration, development and security,” he added.
However, the BJP said, the new land laws notified by the Central Government allowing people from outside Jammu and Kashmir to buy land in the Union Territory will open the “floodgates of development”.
In a statement, senior BJP leader and former Deputy Chief Minister Kavinder Gupta said, “The amendments in the land laws will mark the beginning of a new era of development in the Union Territory with new avenues waiting for the residents to become part of this new journey of progress and prosperity which Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised to one and all.”
Interacting with party workers here, he said, “The changes (in laws) will open the floodgates of development in Jammu and Kashmir, something the region had been denied in the past over 70 years due to myopic and discriminatory policies of the Congress and other regional mainstream parties which ruled the erstwhile state at different points of time.”
He said that before the repeal of Article 370 and Article 35A of the Constitution in August last year, non-residents could not buy any immovable property in J&K, but the changes in the land laws have paved the way for them to buy land, which is “likely to fortify the development profile of Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir”.
“The BJP-led Central Government is determined to bring at par the status of development profile of J&K with the top states in the country and provide equal opportunities to its residents,” Gupta said.
He said the people of Jammu and Kashmir were earlier denied such benefits.
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