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| Bajrang Bali loses his Kathidarwaza abode to land mafia | | Records missing from concerned office | | Javaid Naikoo
SRINAGAR, Oct 4: The revenue records of historically famous Hanuman Temple of Kathidarwaza are missing in the Government offices and officials concerned have no idea of the temple site. The shocking details surfaced in a Right To Information (RTI) application filed in the office of the deputy commissioner Srinagar where from the said application was forwarded to the office of the Tehsildar North Srinagar and after more than 30 days RTI applicant was denied information with an excuse that his RTI application does not fall within the ambit of RTI act 2009. In response to the eight questions asked in the RTI application about the revenue records of Hanuman Temple which include a total area of land demarcated as the temple property, photocopy of original records if any available with the department presently, details about the area of Temple land encroached by locals over the years, details of any departmental inquiry conducted so far in this regard, details about any kind steps taken by the State Government to recover the encroached land from the locals and outsiders living there as well, the applicant after a gap of 45 days in his first appeal was not given any kind of information and was categorically asked by the officials that there are no revenue records available with the Government about the historical Hanuman Temple inside Kathidarwaza Srinagar.
According to the locals of the Kathidarwaza area, the Hanuman temple was set ablaze by some un- identified people when militancy was at its peak in Kashmir in early 90's and after that with the passage of time land mafias of the area in nexus with some officials of the department of revenue demolished the temple and started to sell the land.
Almost 85% of the land of the temple was sold and remaining 15% of the land has been encroached by outsiders.
A Doctor while talking to Early Times said that some locals in nexus with the timely posted noted Patwaris and Tehsildars have framed illegal documents too and are not ready to handover the temple land. "We were also approached by some land mafia to buy some kanals of temple land for one lakh per kanal. However, we refused in view the sacredness of the place, " a local said.
At a time when the RTI applicant has gone for second appeal under RTI Act 2009 to receive any kind of information regarding the revenue records of Hanuman Temple, one noted RTI activist of Kashmir, Dr Mushtaq Ahmad said that the statement received from the office of the Tehsildar north Srinagar in response to the said questionnaire filed by the applicant is nothing but an excuse of the said Tehsildar to delay the process as the application filed in this regard is genuine and as per the norms of RTI act 2009.
Pertinently the first RTI application was filed on 06-06-2013 with the Public Information Officer of the office of the deputy commissioner Srinagar and after more than three months RTI applicant is yet to receive any kind of information in connection with the same and asked to move from one Government office to another. The RTI applicant believes that not a single official so far has taken any kind of stand to come out of mess of corruption as most of them do not have even the concept of the temple site either presently and are not ready to find out the records of the historical temple of the Kathidarwaza Srinagar but instead most of the officials he has contacted so far in this regard argue with him and try to divert his attention from the concern. |
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