Jammu, May 19: Minister for Forest, Ecology and Environment Javed Ahmed Rana Tuesday announced that he had ordered an inquiry into what he described as an “alleged illegal eviction drive” in the Sidhra area on Jammu’s outskirts and said action would be taken against all those involved, including forest department officials.
Rana, while speaking to media persons after visiting the site of the drive and meeting the affected families, said, “This was absolutely an illegal and unjust action. I’ve ordered an inquiry and will not spare those involved in this illegal act. I will take action against the officials of the forest department involved in the eviction drive.”
He asserted that he would take up the matter with the Chief Minister to seek justice for the nomadic community.
“We will not stand by as silent spectators to this selective harassment and high-handedness. I am immediately taking this up at the highest level with Chief Minister Omar Abdullah sb to demand an immediate halt, an institutional inquiry…”
Earlier, during an anti-encroachment drive in the Raika Bandi forest belt on Jammu’s outskirts, officials of the Forest Department, Revenue Department and Police carried out a joint operation and demolished around 25 structures on Tuesday.
Officials said around 60 kanals of prime forest land was retrieved in the drive that lasted about four hours.
The action triggered protests by affected families, mainly nomadic families, who claimed the drive was “illegal as it was conducted without prior notice.”
“They conducted this drive in the name of containing the menace of Chitta. Our submission to the Lieutenant Governor is: was the whole colony involved in it? Why were all houses demolished? This is injustice,” a member of the affected families said.
The families alleged they had been living in the area for the last six generations and that their names appear in the 1952 voter lists.
The Minister for Forests also condemned the action on his social media handle, stating he was “deeply shocked and outraged by the clandestine, unilateral demolition of homes in Sidhra, Jammu by the LG administration.”
“Decades of heritage of our innocent Gujjar-Bakarwal families has been reduced to rubble without taking the elected, popular government or my ministry into confidence. This is not a mere regulatory drive; it is a targeted, cruel eviction aimed at terrorising and marginalising nomadic tribal communities who have protected these lands for over half a century,” Rana posted.
He added, “We will not stand by as silent spectators to this selective harassment and high-handedness. I am immediately taking this up at the highest level with Chief Minister Omar Abdullah sb to demand an immediate halt, an institutional inquiry against the responsible officers and officials, and full rehabilitation for the affected families. Our people deserve justice, not displacement!”
