The steps taken by the Jammu and Kashmir government with regards to retrieving the state land have been extremely cautious and equally requisite for breaking the vicious web of Land mafia in Kashmir province. Most of these land grabbers are affluent and wealthy who have made a fortune out of it.
The numerous drives conducted by Srinagar administration in different parts of the city have enabled them to repossess scores of Kanals of land worth crores. However, this is just a small part of a huge jigsaw puzzle that needs to be unravelled.
This is not the first time that anti-encroachment drives have been initiated by the government in Kashmir as even before such exercises were occasionally organised to purge the illegal occupation. But the extent & duration of these drives was predominantly short lived.
The lamentable dormancy of these drives after the launch only strengthens the intrepidness of the encroachers who firmly believe that such administrative exercises are cosmetic in nature.
But this time the approach of the government is highly commendable and it seems that land mafia and encroachers are perturbed for their crimes. This will enable them to retrieve the large chunks of land besides properly using the same for the welfare of the underprivileged who don’t possess preferable shelter.
However, this is a huge and trying task where the government should use a uniform yardstick for all. No favouritism should be given any space & even if the well-known names of the valley are found guilty, the punishment must be the same. This will definitely help to set right the social order where all citizens are treated equally under an unvarying law.
