Shadow Correspondent
Jammu, Nov, 27
Infuriated over the bulldozing of the houses of poor and marginalized people including the labourers and farmers to the exclusion of powerful elites, a contingent of Panther activists led by Mr. Rajesh Padgotra, Provincial President–JKNPP staged a thunderous protest demonstration in Jammu today. The protesters raised anti-govt and anti-BJP slogans and accused the govt. of succumbing to the political pressure and concealing the names of the BJP’s bigwigs involved in huge encroachment of State and forests land.
Addressing the media, Mr. Rajesh Padgotra admonished the govt for failing to retrieve the encroached State lands from the BJP Ministers, MLAs and MPs. He said though the administration had identified some of the big encroachers of parties like Congress, NC and PDP but seemed to have given a free hand to the notorious land grabbers of the BJP. He maintained that the demolition process had been initiated arbitrarily by overlooking the huge land chunks usurped by the Saffron leaders.
Asserting that politicians and bureaucrats were not above law, he sought appropriate action against all Ministers, legislators and bureaucrats who had encroached govt lands.
He described the selective action of administration govt against the opposition parties as ‘witch hunting’ and the eviction of poor and un- influential as act of ‘cowardice’.
Drawing the attention of Lt. Governor to take action against the culprits, he divulged while the names of political leaders hailing from Congress, NC and PDP have been brought to fore as land grabbers in the public domain, the BJP leaders were not exposed and were exclusively spared under the Saffron influence.
He revealed that one BJP ex-MLA R.S Pathania of Ramnagar in conformity with the RTI reply had encroached 32 kanals and 9 marlas State land under his illegal possession including 9 kanals and 14 marlas usurped under Roshni scheme.
He further pointed out that former Deputy Chief Minister Dr. Nirmal Singh had constructed a palatial bungalow near Army depot at Nagrota in contravention of the guidelines of Ministry of Defence. Similarly, another BJP ex-Minister from Kalakote Abdul Gani Kohli has reportedly encroached a huge chunk of forest land to run his business. Likewise ex-Minister of Saffron party Chander Prakash Ganga has encroached lands all over by coercion and other unlawful means. He has not even spared the private lands and fearlessly used JCBs to grab them to satiate his hunger for land chunks, said Padgotra.
Mr. Padgotra sought to ensure vacation of entire illegal possession of encroachers and other elites by making a beginning from the BJP MPs, Ministers and MLAs. He said that Panthers Party shall expose every culprit involved in land grabbing and not relent unless their names were brought to fore and punitive action was taken against them.
Prominent among those who spoke on the occasion included Neeraj Gupta, Rajesh Gondhi, Rakesh Gupta, Shankaar Singh Sanju, Nikhal Bhagat, Daleep Kumar, Rajeev Kumar, Sanjay Sharma, Rajat Saini, Anuj Kumar besides others.
