Srinagar, May 09 (KMS): The Statistics and Evaluation Department of occupied Kashmir has said that the conversion of cultivable land into Indian army camps is posing a serious threat of food scarcity in occupied Kashmir.

 
The officials have warned the puppet authorities about the unchecked grabbing of agricultural lands by Indian troops in the Valley in general and in north Kashmir in particular.

The total available area in 2001-2002 under “permanent pastures and grazing fields” was 7,000 hectares in Kupwara district, said a report by the Jammu and Kashmir Statistics and Evaluation Department. However, in 2004-2005, the area was reduced to 5191 hectares. “Same is the condition of other types of land in Kupwara,” a senior official of the department told media men in Srinagar.

He said that the expansion of army camps, residential colonies and shopping complexes alongside Srinagar- Baramulla and Kupwara-Sopore highways was in sheer violation of the “Land Revenue Act 133 and Forest Acts” under the cultivation of agriculture, horticulture, and forest lands.

The tragedy is that the puppet regime itself is among the violators. The Food Corporation of India’s store and dry fruit mandi complex have recently come up on hundreds of kanals of land alongside Sopore-Kupwara highway.

As per tentative figures revealed by Jammu and Kashmir Land Acquisition Department, the Army occupies 8245 kanals of land in Kupwara alone. This doesn’t include hundreds of kanals of forestland. Of the occupied land, 721 kanals have been taken forever.

An official of the Agriculture Department warned “The situation is grave; if it’s not controlled immediately it may cause a serious threat to food security.” He suggested that a blanket ban should be imposed on the purchase, conversion and selling of agricultural land and any kind of encroachment or occupation by the army or paramilitary troops to avoid the imminent disaster.