Families in Jammu’s Sidhra area lost decades of belongings overnight as demolition drives swept through without advance notice, sparking debate over law, reports Asrar Syeed
For Mohammed Sharief Khatana, whose family has been living in the Bandhi area of Sidhra, Jammu, for many decades, the demolitions have snatched everything his family had built over the years with hard work and despite many challenges. His family, including many children, is now living in the open air due to a shortage of tents.
“The authorities came along with police and forest authorities around 4:00 am while most of the people in the area were offering the early morning Fajr prayers,” Sharief said. “Despite repeated requests, the authorities did not allow the people to take anything out of their houses.” He is wondering how his children would survive the current scorching summer heat, when temperatures in Jammu have crossed 40 degrees.
His children have continuously complained about the scorching heat, which, according to Sharief, has caused dehydration in them. “See, elders in our family are managing to live in such harsh conditions, but to expect the same from children would be inhumane. My children, since the demolition took place, have been complaining about dehydration, moisture in eyes, and asking for cold drinking water, and asking me why our houses were demolished,” added Sharief, his voice breaking as he explained the ordeal his family and children have been put through.
The question of school books and uniforms has been particularly painful. “My school-going children have been asking me about whether their school books and uniforms could have been saved.”
A video circulating on social media showed a little girl crying as her house was razed during the demolition drive. Being consoled by nearby people, she was asked who had demolished her house. In a heavy voice, tears running down her cheeks, she said: “A machine came and destroyed our entire house along with our belongings. Where should we go, since our house has been destroyed?”
No Notice, No Time
Inayat Ali, a 32-year-old whose family has been living in the area for more than six decades, has found it difficult to understand how his house, along with nearly 30 others, was demolished without any notice. “The authorities gave no such advance notice. We were not aware of the demolition drive. We were surprised when authorities came along with security forces and heavy machinery,” he said. His family home has now been turned into rubble, under which rest countless memories and his family’s belongings.
Sharief’s family, too, had not received any kind of advance notice. “We kept asking the DFO, who had arrived in the early hours of May 19, morning, along with hundreds of security personnel who had laid a siege in the entire area, why people were not served any kind of advance notice. The officer kept saying that we will be provided the notice while the demolition drive continued,” said Sharief, who believes even a few hours of advance notice would have saved the family from losing their personal belongings.
Ms Shama, ex-corporator of Ward 71 Sidhra, who has been helping people who lost their houses by arranging food and rations for them over the past few days, corroborated the account. “The authorities came in the early morning around 4 am while most of the people in the area were still sleeping. The first house from where they started the demolition drive, a lady was offering prayers, and the moment she completed her prayers, she was asked to vacate the house. Despite her repeated requests to take out her belongings, even she wasn’t allowed at first to take out her infant daughter,” she said.
Rule of Law Not Followed
On November 13, 2024, the Supreme Court of India, while hearing multiple pleas against the demolition of structures using bulldozers, stated clearly that if the executive takes the role of a judge and orders the demolition of a house without following the process of law, it is violative of the rule of law. A bench of Justices BR Gavai and KV Vishwanathan had observed: “It is not a happy sight to see women, children and aged persons dragged to the streets overnight. Heavens would not fall on the authorities if they hold their hands for some period.”
The court issued specific directions: no demolition is permissible without a show cause notice; the notice is to be sent by registered post to the building owner and pasted outside the structure proposed to be demolished; and at least 15 days from the date of notice must be given before any demolition action is taken.
“Before any eviction drive in this country, there is a due procedure of law, the principle of natural justice. For any eviction or any proceeding, the authorities are bound to serve a notice. They are duty-bound, and this is the Supreme Court’s latest judgement over demolition cases, that without a 15-day notice, the authorities are not able to demolish or evict any person from forest, state, or any kind of land,” said Advocate Zulkarnanin Choudhary. “But here in this UT, they are throwing the law of land into the wind while these illegal eviction drives are going on.”
Advocate Aditya Gupta, President of Youth JKPDP, pointed to the human cost of bypassing the procedure. “For a poor person, even a belonging worth a few thousand rupees is very precious, and you just destroy them without learning about how badly it will affect them and cause permanent trauma. Even children have been traumatised during such demolition drives.”
“See, the tragedy here is that these bureaucratic officers, they do not follow the due process of law. They take these people as someone who doesn’t exist. The time limit was 15 days; you have to give a notice, upon which these people would have shown their own documents or, if they failed to do so, they would have packed their belongings and vacated the place,” he added.
Repeated calls were made to Jammu Development Authority and Forest Minister Javed Rana to confirm the allegations of people not being served with any advance notice, but no response could be obtained at the time of filing this report.
Political Fault Lines
The demolition drive at Raika Bandi has sparked a widespread political debate across Jammu and Kashmir over who ordered the action. Cabinet Minister of Forest, Environment and Tribal Affairs Javed Rana, from the ruling party, pinned the blame on the LG Administration, writing on his social media platform X: “Deeply shocked and outraged by the clandestine, unilateral demolition of homes in Sidhra, Jammu by the LG Administration. Decades of heritage of our innocent Gujjar-Bakerwal families have been reduced to rubble without taking the elected, popular government or ministry into confidence.”
The statement drew sharp criticism from opposition parties. PDP’s Iltija Mufti, after meeting the people who had lost their houses, questioned the ruling government directly: “NC is implementing BJP’s agenda.” Responding to Rana’s claim that the elected government was unaware of the drive, she asked: “Doesn’t the forest department come under Javed Rana? It doesn’t come under the LG administration. It’s his DFO that came here along with the police and JCBs. If Javed Rana has no authority, why is he sitting on that chair?”
MLA Budhal Javed Iqbal Chowdhury offered a defence of the minister: “There is a dual power system in Jammu and Kashmir currently. The authority is with the IAS officers or the bureaucracy of the state, a bureaucracy that doesn’t respect the ministers. So even the Forest Minister didn’t know anything about the demolition drive at Raika Bandi that day.”
BJP senior leader and former MLA from Nowshera Assembly Ravinder Raina said: “BJP is a party which builds homes for people, not the one which breaks homes of poor people.” Commenting on the ruling party’s stance, he added, “These people are trying to run away from their responsibilities. They will have to explain this to people. They cannot pin the blame on the LG Administration.”
What Remains
The families of both Inayat and Sharief have lost their entire household items, clothes, and school books. Zahid Parwaz Choudhary, president of the Jammu and Kashmir Gujjar Bakerwal Youth Welfare Conference, said the authorities had not given any kind of advance 14-day notice to people whose houses were demolished. He further argued that a selective targeting of the Gujjar Bakerwal community was being done, which he described as disheartening.
Sharief’s daily indignities continue as well. “We have been stripped of our entire belongings. Women of our household have been finding it very difficult without necessities such as washrooms. First, the authorities demolished the rooftops of our washrooms, then they demolished those washrooms from the inside. How come do you expect these women to use open air spaces for addressing their washroom needs?” asked Sharief.
In the recently held session of the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly, the government revealed that a total of 17,27,248.16 Kanals of state land are under encroachment across the Union Territory, out of which 14,29,200.42 Kanals have been retrieved so far. Jammu division topped the list with over 14,00,049.56 Kanals of state land under encroachment. Demolition drives have since been carried out across various areas, including Sidhra, Ring Road, Indira Nagar, and Nagrota.
But for Mohammed Sharief Khatana, standing in the open summer heat of Jammu, those numbers mean little. What remains is the rubble, the children asking why, and the long wait for an answer that has not come.
A Probe
Rana, who heads the Tribal Affairs and the Forest Ministry in Omar’s government, has ordered a probe into the demolition of the houses, describing the forest department’s drive as “inhuman, anti-people and against law”. He has urged Lt Governor Manoj Sinha to act against police personnel over alleged excesses during the operation. The minister disputed the department’s claim that the land was forest property, saying tribal families had been living there for nearly four decades and were reflected in revenue records. Police, as well as the forest department, earlier said they have removed encroachments and reclaimed 60 kanals of forest land.
Unlike Jammu, the demolitions enraged the political class in Kashmir across party lines. Sajad Lon termed the probe by Rana as an eye wash. “The National Conference-led government’s move to order an enquiry into and report on any violation of the Forest Rights Act during the demolition drive in Jammu is a mere eyewash, similar to thousands of magisterial probes ordered into civilian killings in Jammu and Kashmir during the last three decades to calm public anger,” Lone said on X. “Why seven days’ time for something that would have been established in 10 minutes? My understanding is that the demolition of houses will constitute a violation of the FRA if their claims for individual or community rights are pending.”
