STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: Convenor, Tawi Andolan and Namami Gange Project, Advocate Chander Mohan Sharma on Wednesday expressed concern over the slackness of previous State Governments in dealing with land encroachment by the unscrupulous persons within and around River Tawi basin and banks, water bodies and forests.
Chander Mohan, a senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader, condemned the action of Zulfikar Ali, Cabinet Minister for his support and encouragement to said land mafia responsible for prime land encroachment in Nikki Tawi area.
He reminded Zulfikar Ali that Coalition Government is functioning upon two fundamentals i.e. Good Governance and Development.
No minister of the government can trample the ‘Agenda of Alliance’ wherein it has been cogent that River Tawi will be developed on the pattern of Holy Ganga, he asserted.
Encouraging land mafia and illegal occupants of State land and River Tawi basins is against these basic principles, he said adding that there are number of directions issued by High Court of J and K that all encroachments from water bodies like Jhelum, Wuller Lake, Dal Lake, Tawi River and Chenab be removed.
He further said whenever, any serious attempt is made to retrieve such grabbed land, the land mafia attack the staff and even the police parties accompanying them.
Terming the brutal attack on the staff and police party by the miscreants as an act of highhandedness and violence, he condemn the assault on police party and damaging police vehicle by land mafia at village Kernel-e-Chak of Nikki Tawi area of Jammu.
“Such Highhandedness and brutal lawlessness should not be tolerated and government should take strict action against the culprits,” he said and expressed that such ‘Gunda Gardi’ can demoralise police force which is already engaged in combat operations against terrorism.
In view of the Pathankot terrorist attack, he said, the State law enforcing agencies must weed out such elements which provoked attack on the police.
Removal of the illegal encroachments from the State land is necessary, he said.
“I praise Ministry of Forest for recovering huge forest land from land mafia at various places in the State. I also praise district administration Jammu for this bold initiative to get State land free from illegal occupation,” he said.
He demanded police action against all illegal occupants of the State land who have come from Bangladesh, Myanmar and other part of our own State unreasonably.
Others present were Subash Gupta (Co-Convenor), Surinder Sharma, Prof. Rajinder Mishra, Dr. Prem Sharma, J.K. Chopra, Ravi Sharma and Raj Kumar.
