Srinagar, May 20: Senior PDP leader and former MP & Cabinet Minister Dr Mehboob Beg has expressed deep anguish over the ongoing demolition of makeshift dwellings belonging to economically marginalised families across Jammu & Kashmir.
Terming the action “unfortunate and insensitive,” Dr Beg said: “To dismantle what are merely rusted tin sheets wrapped in torn polythene — hamlets where our poorest citizens take shelter — under the authority of a government that enjoys an overwhelming electoral mandate, amounts to humiliating and disrespecting the very people who gave that verdict. A mandate is a trust placed by the people; it must be used to protect the vulnerable, not to displace them.”
Dr Beg emphasised that the people of J&K reposed faith in the democratic process despite decades of turmoil. “The ballot was chosen over the bullet. When that same mandate is used to render the shelter-less further destitute, it shakes the common man’s faith in the ballot box itself,” he added. He urged the administration to immediately halt the demolition drive and instead formulate a humane rehabilitation policy. “Governance cannot be divorced from compassion. Before removing a single sheet of tin, the Government must ensure alternate, dignified housing for these families. Development without dignity is exclusion,” Dr Beg stated. The PDP leader also appealed to all political parties and civil society to rise above partisan lines and stand with the dispossessed. “The true test of a government’s strength lies in how it treats its weakest citizens,” he concluded.
