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Setting up of Kashmiri Muslim Migrant Colony
Division Bench of the State High Court, comprising Justice VK Jhanji and Justice SK Gupta has directed Chief Secretary and Chief Conservator of Forests to produce the record of over 623 kanals of forest land which has been identified for setting up of Kashmiri Muslim Migrant Colony near Jammu. The Court also restrained Government from raising any construction of the colony on this land till next date of hearing.
This direction was passed on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Prof Bhim Singh, Chairman, J&K Panthers Party Jammu. This land on which State Government wanted to set up Kashmiri Muslim Migrant Colony, was transferred to Jammu Development Authority (JDA) vide an order dated May 23, 2002.
In the petition, Prof Bhim Singh said that State Government had kept this project secret and Government wanted to set up colony exclusively for Kashmiri Muslim migrants, even when there were over two lakh Kashmiri Pandit migrants, but their names were not mentioned in the new scheme of the Government.
In the PIL, it has also been mentioned
that one million of people of Jammu have been made to suffer by the destruction
of forests and greenery around the city for the pleasure of politicians
in power and high-fi bureaucrats. "Gandhinagar forests were destroyed.
The same happened at Trikutanagar and Bagh-e-Bahu. The area called Bithandi
also met the same fate", Prof Bhim Singh in the petition stated, adding
that former Chief Minister Dr Farooq Abdullah, ‘by misuse of his official
position’ got a major chunk of forest land transferred to benami persons
and later got the same land transferred in his name and that of his Ministers,
party workers etc. In the PIL, it was alleged that thousands of trees planted
by Social Forestry with the aid of World Bank and international agencies
were destroyed/ cut at the instance of Dr Farooq Abdullah. The petitioner
has sought the quashment of the Government order whereby the forest land
was transferred for ‘non-forest purposes.
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