Srinagar, April 11: Residents of Singhpora in Baramulla district has said that they are on the brink of migration as a Indian paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) camp, despite repeated pleas by the locals to authorities, seems likely to come up in the area soon.
Residents of Singhpora in Baramulla district has said that they are contemplating migration as a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) camp, despite repeated pleas by the locals to authorities, seems likely to come up in the area soon. The village, with a population of 5000 people, already has a Border Security Force (BSF) camp, one of the largest in north Kashmir, occupied at least 3000 kanals of orchard and agricultural land of locals since 1979 . Then, in 1994, Indian Army’s 52 Rashtriya Rifles (RR) occupied 1750 Kanals of land at Singhpora and constructed another camp in the area.
As reported earlier, in August 2010, the paramilitary forces were eyeing up to 1000 kanals of land in the area for one more camp. Earlier that month, according to villagers, CRPF officials had visited Singhpora and Uplona villages and expressed their willingness to acquire land “they had been eyeing for long” in the area against compensation. The villagers had turned down the offer and refused to give the CRPF the land.
However, on August 27, 2010 the residents were shocked to see the CRPF personnel accompanied by engineers carrying survey on the land belonging to the villagers. Fearing that the forces were up to something, the villagers had brought the issue into the notice of then Deputy Commissioner, Baramulla, Lateef-ul-Zaman Deva who had promised that the forces will not be given land in the district.
“The forces have acquired enough land in the district. No more land will be allotted to them,” Deva had said.
“In 2007, after the then so-called Deputy Chief Minister, Muzaffar Hussain Beig’s intervention the CRPF deferred their plan to build the camp in the area. After reports of the paramilitary force eyeing the land again a couple of years ago, we met Omar Abdullah’s political adviser, Devinder Singh Raina, who intervened and directed the deputy commissioner Baramulla to stop the process,” the delegation said.
But, notwithstanding the official assurances, from the last few days the villagers say CRPF officers have been visiting the area again, raising fears that the paramilitary force is likely to begin demarcation of the camp in the next two -three days. “If another forces camp comes up in the already heavily militarized area, we will be forced to migrate,” a delagtion headed by Showkat Ahmad Bakshi, local Sarpanch (head) and president local Masjid Committee told Press Bureau of India on Monday.
President Teachers Forum Baramulla and a local resident, Mohammad Rafiq Rather also expressed similar moves.