J&K Govt told to withdraw ‘tribal directive’: Madhav

15/04/2018

Jammu, Apr 14: The Jammu and Kashmir government has been told to withdraw its directive on encroachments by nomads in forest land, senior BJP leader Ram Madhav said today. The issue has been raked by the Bar Association of Jammu and Kashmir High Court as threat to the demography of Jammu.
Earlier this year, the state government had directed the police and district administrations to not provide "police protection" for anti-encroachment drives being carried out by government departments against tribal population without prior approval of the tribal affairs department. The chief minister also directed that till a formal tribal policy is formulated and issued, tribal population shall not be disturbed, dislocated.
"The directive (of Tribal Affairs department) issued and circulated to different districts must be withdrawn. This we have told the government already," Madhav told reporters here.
Madhav, who is the party's general secretary in-charge of the state, was replying to a question about the alleged demographic changes in Jammu due to the settlement of the Rohingyas and tribals on encroached state lands in Jammu city.
"There has been very clear and consistent stand of the BJP on these two issues (deportation of Rohingyas and massive encroachments and settlement on state lands by tribal people)," Madhav said.
The BJP leader said that as far Rohingyas were concerned, Union Home Ministry was seized of the matter and effective steps would be taken "very soon".
"On those issues, the party (BJP) stand has been consistent", he said.
The Jammu Development Authority (JDA) and revenue and forest departments are undertaking anti-encroachment drives in large chunk of lands for the past six months. The state government earlier said in the Assembly that 1,510 acres of land had been encroached in the city.
The BAJ has said that the directive was not only giving immunity to encroacher tribals in Jammu but would also encourage more encroachments of Jammu lands.
Madhav also said the Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre was "promise-bound" to fulfill the dream of B R Ambedkar to bring equality in the country.
The BJP leader was addressing a function organised by BJP state Scheduled Caste Morcha at party headquarters here to celebrate Ambedkar's 127th birthday anniversary.
"The country achieved independence from British long back but we are yet to achieve the freedom from social evils like caste system. We need to get freedom from it and we need to treat everyone equally irrespective of their creed, colour, caste, religion, region and language," Madhav said.
"There are lot of laws but laws alone won't help. We are all one family and this needs to be kept in mind to maintain brotherhood," he said.
Various instances had come to fore where people from scheduled castes had faced discrimination, said Madhav, and appealed others to get behind the victims in such cases.
"At some places, scheduled caste are not able to get a house on rent. The backward class are facing lot of atrocities because equality is lacking in the country. We need to empathize with such victims," the minister said.
He said the atmosphere in Jammu, which has a large population of Scheduled castes, was good "but still a stringent law is needed to safeguard the interests of the public".
Madhav said Ambedkar was a great nationalist and his life was a glaring example of it.
"From freedom struggle to writing the constitution of the country, his contribution for upliftment of weaker sections of the society is worth praise and our government is working with that resolve and is promise bound to fulfill his dream to ensure equality," he said.
Madhav said the BJP government was working for the benefit of poor and wanted to see the last citizen of the country happy.
"The Centre has launched various schemes to make the poor stand on their feet...This government will never take any step which will go against the poor population of the country," he said.
"There are many ways to improve the GDP but we believe that it will automatically go up when the lives of the poor improve," he said.

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