Stop harassing people in garb of anti-encroachment drives: Kundal

Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Jan 15: Former minister and chairman ST, SC, and OBC Cell of Jammu and Kashmir unit of Aam Aadmi Party, Yashpal Kundal, has appealed the J&K administration led by LG Manoj Sinha to immediately “stop harassing” the people in “the garb of anti-encroachment drives”.
Kundal stated this while reacting to a government order directing the Divisional Commissioners and Deputy Commissioners to get all the encroachments on the UT land removed by January 31, 2023.
In a statement, the senior AAP leader said: “while we support the government on removing encroachments made in the name of Roshni Act, AAP strongly believes that there should be no room for harassment of commoners during the drive.
“The Government must take stringent action against those influential people who have been using such land for commercial purposes especially in big cities and towns.”
The former minister said that majority of the UT land is being possessed by the poor and economical weaker sections of the society and they are mainly using it for agricultural purposes or at the most for meagre shelter.
“These people have no source of income except the meagre returns from the agricultural activity on the land. So, the protection and welfare of such people is the prime duty of the government,” he said.
“Dislodging such people from the UT land would amount to gross injustice,” Kundal further said.
He said that it is ironical that people who were expecting that they would get ownership rights of the custodian land are being rather robbed of their meagre lands.
The senior AAP leader warned government to desist from harassing common people “or else we will take to the streets and roads to fight for the rights of the marginalized sections of the society”.