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| Beyond political games over AFSPA Shall pro chancellor help JU get back its land under Army's occupation? | | City's important artery continues to be blocked by Army! | |
Abodh Sharma
Jammu, May 6: Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has vigorously pursued the partial revocation of AFSPA and relocation of Army and the para military forces in the state, particularly in the valley with an eye on the political mileage that such a move can churn out for him; but it is a pity that Army continues to occupy hundreds of kanals of land of the already asphyxiated University of Jammu besides permanently blocking an important artery of the traffic clogged Jammu city. Interestingly, the government, the administration and even the citizen organizations have stayed totally inert to it.
An important artery of the city joining Ware House and Bikram Chowk to Satwari cantonment and the technical airport has been permanently blocked by the Army for over a decade sighting security reasons. The road which can take a huge chunk of traffic has become even more crucial with the construction of fourth bridge on Tawi that proposes to join Belicharana with Bhagwati Nagar. "Blocking of an important artery of the city tantamount to infringement of civil liberties of the citizenry" said Baldev Raj, a social activist. "Army can be asked to get the barricading of its premises on the either side of the road done if there is any threat perception to its installations, but even the road outside the Army Headquarters is a throughfare" he added ruing, "Even the Chief Minister who flies from the technical airport is not allowed to use this road". Jammu University, has suffered a lot as many as extension plans of the University necessitated due to multi fold increase in students over the years had to be shelved due to paucity of land. Army's transit Camp and the residence of the Brigade Commander have occupied huge chunk its land. It was strange that when son of the soil, General NC Vij was the Chief of Army staff and another son of the soil, Prof, Chaman Lal Gupta was the Union Minister of state for defense, the university administration had aggressively pursued its case for revocation of its land from Army occupation, but despite so many suitable permutations, Army refused to oblige. "Army was very straight forward in exerting that they needed that land.
They however agreed to vacate if they were given an alternate land of equal market value, which was estimated at 400 crores at that point of time" said a senior university officer, who did not want to be quoted. However, it seems ridiculous why Army should demand an alternate land of 'same commercial value'.
Professor Gupta, however blamed it on the erstwhile State Government.
"We had identified a land in Sunjwan to be allotted to the Army as an alternate, but Dr. Farooq Abdullah did not agree as he planned to develop residential colonies in Sunjwan area and the proposal had to be shelved.
While separatists generally raise an outcry against occupation of lakhs of kanals of land by the Army in the valley, merely seeking the legitimate right of way through an important artery of the city or raising voice to get University's land repatriated to it for the larger benefit of the students would not make people of Jammu any less patriot or nationalist. |
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