The skeletons are fast tumbling out of the closet for the protagonists of the Gupkar alliance amid the ongoing District Development Council Elections (DDC) in Jammu and Kashmir - the first polls since the abrogation of Article 370 and bifurcation of the erstwhile state in August 2019 - which have recorded a healthy voter turnout in the initial few phases held so far.
As the outrageous details of the multi-crore Roshni land scam in J&K continue to unfold in the public domain, it is yet another vindication of the fact those who claim to be the messiahs of the Kashmiri people are not only involved in a dangerous anti-India agenda but also stand neck-deep in corruption.
Under the Roshni scheme, encroached land in the former state of J&K was meant to be regularised and hydroelectric projects in the region were to be funded by the money collected through the scheme. But according to several reports, the scheme only
It was the Farooq Abdullah government in 2001 that introduced the Jammu and Kashmir State Land (Vesting of Ownership to Occupants) Act with a supposed vision to regularise unauthorised land occupation. Those who were considered to be in illegal possession of government land in J&K for decades were granted legal ownership rights by the state administration. By virtue of the new law, the state was thus able to legalise encroached spaces in exchange for a certain fee and the money raised through this process was promised to be utilised for the improvement of power generation in J&K, which is how the act came to be known as the Roshni Act.
image source : dnaindia.com
Around Rs 25,000 crore were originally projected to be accumulated through the Roshni scheme. But according to several reports less than Rs 80 crore was raised through regularisation of more than 75,000 acres of land in J&K.
However, it was in 2014 and thereafter that auditory agencies such as the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) claimed that the regularisation of encroached properties was done at throwaway rates, thereby leading to an abuse of the Roshni Act. After the BJP-PDP alliance broke in 2018, the then J&K Governor Satyapal Malik revoked the Roshni Act. On October 9 this year, the J&K High Court declared the Roshni Act “illegal, unconstitutional and unsustainable” and ordered a CBI investigation into the wrongdoings. And like that the news of the Roshni scam, labelled as the biggest scam in J&K, started making headlines.
Since then the Abdullahs, under whose government in J&K the Roshni scheme was initiated, have been under fire as well as many other top leaders from the NC and also the PDP. Several mainstream media outlets have accessed documents indicating that the leaders of the two parties took illegitimate advantage of the Roshni scheme for their vested interests and aimed to alter the demography of the Jammu region through the scheme.
In accordance with the J&K High Court directive to make the names of the beneficiaries of the controversial scheme public, the UT administration in July released lists of individuals accused of being the dubious owners of land acquired under the scrapped J&K Roshni Act. The lists included the names of former J&K Chief Minister and NC patron Farooq Abdullah, Abdullah’s son and former J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, his brother and NC leader Mustafa Kamal, former J&K Finance Minister Haseeb Drabu and several other prominent names - all of whom are alleged to have illegally benefitted from the Roshni scheme.
From a nationalistic perspective, the recent developments in J&K augur well for the Modi government and the Indian nationalists who have been on a relentless mission for a long time to expose the vile secessionist forces and bring Kashmir into India’s mainstream.
Firstly, healthy participation from local Kashmiris in the DDC elections in the post Article 370 abrogation era has reaffirmed the fact that Kashmir wants to progress on the path of stability and development through democratic practices. No matter which way the poll results go, the Indian democracy has already won in Kashmir thanks to the sizeable voter turn out in the DDC polls that are currently taking place.
Secondly and very significantly, the revelation of the Roshni scam has hit the separatist political parties of Kashmir and the Gupkar gang at just the right time to uncover their nefarious designs further. It is amusing, to say the least, that the NC and the PDP politicians who are under investigation for their alleged involvement in the land scam want the people of Kashmir to believe that they are fighting for the Kashmiri cause and the restoration of J&K’s special status.
Brick by brick, the castle of sinister anti-India propaganda run by the secessionists is crumbling away. From Farooq Abdullah’s shocking appeal to China to meddle in India’s domestic affairs by helping the separatists in reinstating J&K’s special status to his and scores of other Kashmiri politicians’ names emerging in the Roshini scam, the picture is s clear as it gets. The onus is now on the people of Kashmir to wake up to the stark reality that those they consider to be their role models are not only against the idea of a unified India but also the well being and prosperity of ordinary Kashmiris.
Modi government’s ‘no-vendetta’ politics
One strong fact that has emanated from the current situation in Kashmir’s politics is that contrary to the demonic picture of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the international media and the pseudo-liberal news outlets in India have painted since 2014, the Modi government has never employed any strong-arm tactics against forces such as the Gupkar Gang, or the Kashmiri separatists at large, for their overt and brazen attack on India’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Unlike many previous Congress-led union governments and some state governments in present times or the past which have misused the state machinery for political vendetta, the Modi government has never indulged in cheap vindictive stunts against its adversaries. Neither in Kashmir since the scrapping of Article 370 or before that, nor during the sham anti-CAA protests choreographed by the pseudo-secular lobby earlier this year at Shaheen Bagh in New Delhi and elsewhere in the country or during the ongoing misguided farmer protests backed by the Congress, other opposition parties and the anti-Modi camp.
image source : swarajyamag.com
In spite of a tirade unleashed time and again against the Government of India by the main members of the Gupkar Gang post their release from detention, there has never been a single instance of the illegitimate use of force or intimidation by the Modi government. Instead, the top brass of the NC and the PDP find themselves in the middle of an independent CBI investigation for abusing the Roshni scheme which was meant for the upliftment of the same public these politicians claim to be the representatives of.
As the CBI investigation into the Roshini scam digs deeper, more details are expected to surface. But the moment of reckoning for the people of Kashmir is now. If they continue to invest their faith in farcical and unscrupulous groups such as the Gupkar Gang, they will be pushed many years back. Therefore, the choice is simple.
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