Kashmiri Pandit migrants, mostly of the younger generation, are misusing the Jammu and Kashmir administration’s recently launched online grievance portal by filing false complaints to claim land that their grandparents have willingly sold to people in Kashmir, according to a local Kashmiri news agency, KDC.
According to the report, the J&K administration’s online grievance site is inundated with fake complaints from Kashmiri Pandits, causing the revenue department’s smooth operation to suffer.
“We have not come across any genuine complaint where an individual has illegally occupied a Kashmiri Pandit land or any other property in Kashmir. In the majority of the complaints, we found the land or house has been sold wilfully, with complete legal documentation,” a revenue department official said.
According to the report, Pandits have filed fake claims about their land and property, which they had otherwise sold legally to the public.
Fake and misleading complaints, according to a revenue officer in South Kashmir’s Anantnag district, have overwhelmed revenue and administrative authorities on the ground. “Officials get busy in assessing and verifying the credentials of these complaints which later turn out to be fake,” he said.
“Assessing these fake complaints consumes our time and workforce. When we send the staff to assess the complaints, they are found fake as the owners have sold property and land to people hereafter complying will all legal and revenue formalities,” he said.
A public delegation from Aishmuqam Anantnag stated that they bought a piece of land from a Kashmir Pandit in 1999, but that certain Kashmir Pandits filed a fake complaint alleging that the deal was illegal 22 years later.
“The documents of attorney, agreement to sell and sale deed were duly attested by a first-class magistrate in presence of the owner of the land in Jammu in 1999. All codal formalities laid down by the government in Migrant Act, 1999, were completed in the court,” a member said.
Officials claim that similar fictitious complaints are filed on the platform, wasting officials’ time.
Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha has launched an online complaint platform for migrants to register real land and property concerns for settlement.
The Chenab Times News Desk