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| Open loot of forest land in Shopian | | Land Mafia conniving with Revenue officials to change land records | | Early Times Report
Srinagar, Nov 30: High Profile people are turning out to be land Mafias in different forest compartments of District Shopian. The areas once considered as dense forests are turning out as residential and commercial colonies.
The issue even though highlighted by the media many a times and discussed in state legislative council as well, is still a matter of great concern for people of the state.
The data collected from the office of the District Forest Officer Shopian reveal that currently there are 773.22 hectares of forest land under the illegal occupation of land Mafia including some Sarpanchs and people backed by politicians in different jungle compartments of the area.
''Department of Revenue, Shopian is solely responsible for converting thousands of kanals of forest land illegally by using fraudulent measures and people in nexus with some local Patwari’s after spending huge amounts of money are claiming ownership rights on forest land today", says ex D.F.O Shopian, Hu-mayun Qadri.
He added that today when any action is taken against such land Mafia in the area, most of the times forest employees not only face tou-gh time and met forcible measures , encroaches also use political appro-aches to strand our actions, besides these people also possess documents framed illegally to claim ownership rights on the forest land.
In a major disclosure, concerned forest officials reveal that some politically backed people in the area like Muhammad Sultan Bhat of Sedhav along with 25 other people of the same area claim ownership rights on more than 600 kanals of forest land. Likewise Ghulam Hassan Wani an ex-MLA'S father in law of Heer-pora Shopian, Muhammad Syed Sarpanch of the same area and Gul Muh-ammad Ganai, Sarpanch of Paadpawan ar-ea have gra-bbed hundreds of kan-als of forest land under the umbrella of illegal ownership rights on forest land in the area.
The data collected from the district forest department Shopian reveal that among the most affected areas under illegal encroa-chment are Mithwani, Chotipora, Sedhav, Heerpora, Paadpawan, Ringward, Zawoora-Manloo and some areas in district Pulwama as well.
The data also reveal that during the year 2011, more than 50 Hectares of forest land were recovered from land Mafia's in Sedhav and Zawoora areas.
After 1990, first time the area of forest land recovered was put under the plantation drive to safeguard it from re-encroaching in the future.
Considering it a successful attempt, forest officials said that during 2010-2011, 40 people were arrested involved in jungle smuggling in the area among 6 people were booked under public safety act, besides 70 other involved in different illegal activities surrendered before concerned officials.
In one such similar attempt,the department has received Rs 6 lakh as a fine from employees of forest department responsible for illegally selling forest wood to some local jungle smugglers.
However,after one fire incident during 90's, Forest Department Shopian has no records of the exact area of forest land before 1990 and area encroached after the eruption of militancy in Kashmir.
Concerned forest officials in the area also reveal that keeping in view the pace of encroachment of forest land, consumption of forests for different purposes like providing timber for construction purposes to people in general, land mafia, jungle smuggling and similar other measures if not stopped soon will not only be hazardous for wildlife but also a dangerous sign for human habitation in the area.
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